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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26084809">a brave soldier girl (comes marching towards war and peace)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/moranice/pseuds/moranice'>moranice</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Children Of The Sun [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Bad Puns, Communication in Bed, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Flashbacks, Fluff, Friendly banter, Growing Up, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Multi, Porn with Feelings, Post-Canon Fix-It, Pre-Canon, Romance, Snarky characters, This is a Lyra Erso Appreciation Story</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:29:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>27,187</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26084809</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/moranice/pseuds/moranice</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“Did we do something wrong?” Jyn asks quietly as she looks away from chaotic black and blue swirl of hyperspace and rests her head on mama’s shoulder, keen to take in her every expression and search for some clarity and reassurance in this strange new world. “Or did we do something right?” </em>
</p><p>  <em>“Something brave, love,” mama tells her and presses her lips to the crown of Jyn’s head. “And something very, very right.”</em></p><p>Or alternatively: Jyn Erso and a story of choices, old lessons, and their ripple effects throughout her complicated life, plus a love letter to Lyra Erso.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, Galen Erso &amp; Jyn Erso, Jyn Erso &amp; Lyra Erso, Jyn Erso &amp; Saw Gerrera</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Children Of The Sun [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1233785</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a brave soldier girl (comes marching towards war and peace)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The work is a part of the series, so there are references throughout to events that happened in other stories. Hopefully it still works as a standalone, but it definitely benefits knowing what those references represent.</p><p>And one more thing before you get to reading: there's a point in this story where it delves into beginning of Rogue One the movie from Jyn's perspective, so the canon on-screen death of Lyra still applies. It is NOT the focus of the story, I do not linger on it, but it is a point there's no escaping from. I'm not sure it's right to tag the story with canonical character death, as I don't want it to send a message that someone from the Rogue crew doesn't make it, so I chose not to.</p><p>But I want to warn you now that the story does deal with a canonical character death.</p><p>Onward, then. To the mother-daughter story we didn't get and to a happy-ending Jyn deserved.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p>Jyn’s life turns upside down with no warning, her family’s sudden escape from Coruscant unfolding in a swift whirlwind of events. Her heart is beating too fast like a little bird desperate to outrun a storm and it’s a feeling vastly different from exertion of running, a feeling she decidedly does not like. The Imperial capital’s underbelly is dark and gritty, streets too-narrow in places for any kind of comfort and too full of shadows, a place woven from fear and misery, and it feels foreign against the image and feel of Coruscant that Jyn knew before. They make it to the ship at last, though, mama whispers reassurances into her ear, and she’s seen enough cartoons and holo-shows at this point to know that the twisting black-and-blue kaleidoscope of hyperspace means that at least for now they’re safe.</p><p>She’s nearly five years old and under no impression that she truly knows the galaxy (if anything, the older she gets the more it feels that the world is getting stranger, vaster, more complex in a way that both excites her and makes her feel even smaller than she is to her grave distaste), but she knows enough to suspect that something bad is now looming on the horizon. The stories mama tells her or allows her to watch often have an undercurrent of battles between good and evil, a seemingly universal theme in stories and as prevalent as odes to all kinds of love and celebrating families and friends, and such abrupt escape from their home rhymes somewhat with those stories.</p><p>“Did we do something wrong?” Jyn asks quietly as she looks away from chaotic black and blue swirl of hyperspace and rests her head on mama’s shoulder, keen to take in her every expression and search for some clarity and reassurance in this strange new world. “Or did we do something right?”</p><p>In the pilot’s seat, a bald armor-clad man with faint scars on his face and a slightly unkempt greying beard whom mama introduced as Uncle Saw barks out a laugh. “Well, this one’s your daughter, Lyra, no doubts about that,” he states with unexpected dry humor, approving and warm despite his cold demeanor, and while Lyra Erso smiles, she also sighs quietly.</p><p>“Something brave, love,” mama tells her and presses her lips to the crown of Jyn’s head. “And something very, very right.”</p>
<hr/><p><em>Years later</em>, on a shuttle that takes a now fully-orphaned young woman back from Eadu to Yavin 4 with no tangible proof of a flaw in a horrifying weapon but the words of a disgraced rebel fighter turned a lone criminal turned a prisoner of the Empire and an Imperial scientist who is―<em>was</em>, kriff it all, her <em>father</em>, she prepares to defend her newfound cause with fervor that matches Saw Gerrera before battle and Lyra Erso’s resolve to save her husband.</p><p>Jyn tries to think of Saw, of what he’d say to re-ignite the fire in the heart of rebels, to inspire a righteous riot that would explode Imperial dreams into flames, and tries not to think of the way her mother’s brave stand has ended. And, like sometimes it happens with living souls, what she wills for isn’t really what she gets. Instead, a near-forgotten memory, a thing once discarded, lost like a faded photograph to the tides of time, creeps up on her.</p><p>Unexpected and full of sudden clarity, it makes her wonder whether or not then and there on the beat up starship that carried her family away from the Empire and towards a few more years of peaceful happiness Lyra Erso somehow knew that life won’t be too kind for her daughter. Wonder if along with that smile reflecting pride for Jyn’s smarts, Lyra tried to focus her attention on the mesmerizing twisting kaleidoscope of space and time, but mostly mourned for an inevitable war her daughter would fight one day.</p><p>A day that came to pass so early it’s worth of being dubbed a tragedy.</p><p>It makes her wonder if mama would’ve been proud of her now. If her rediscovering the will to oppose Imperial-inflicted horrors and injustice doesn’t come too late to make a difference, to right the wrongs ― her own, those of her father, those of the man in white and his twisted dreams and those of the Empire itself.</p><p>Jyn has no answers to either of those questions.</p><p>But she <em>hopes</em>.</p><p>And she’s ready for her fight. A fight that’s been a long time coming, a cruel twist of stupid fate. A fight she’ll either win or die trying to win because the fate of entire galaxy is at stake and this time she can do something about it.</p><p>She’ll <em>make</em> it happen even if she’ll find herself alone and will need to resort to thievery again.</p><p>What else she can lose, after all? The galaxy is a kriffed up place, but it deserves better.</p>
<hr/><p>(She’s not alone when she sets out to change the course of history and faces her father’s legacy. And, somehow, she finds herself a home along this brutal way.)</p>
<hr/><p>Lyra slips away from the co-pilot’s seat with Jyn, freeing the spot for her husband, and heads towards the ship’s main hold. It’s a small ship, not designed for much privacy or comfort, with a rather narrow cargo section and crew quarters separated from the rest of the vessel by an old, heavy curtain. Two twin sleeping spots are built in by the sides, with a small walking space between them that ends with a ‘fresher door.</p><p>“Up or down?” mama asks with a small, knowing smile.</p><p>Her day (well, technically still night) had took on a very stressful and wildly confusing, unexpected turn, but there’s no way Jyn will let that get in the way of claiming the coolest place on the ship for herself. “Up, of course,” she demands, nose scrunching up in mild offence for the question needed to be asked, and this time mama chuckles.</p><p>“Of course,” she echoes, good-natured, and lifts Jyn up, helping her to settle down on the upper bunk.</p><p>That moment of levity doesn’t last for too long, though. Lyra rests her forearms against the bunk, leans her weight upon it, and lays her head upon her hands in a way that will allow her to keep Jyn in her line of sight. “I know you must have many questions, Stardust,” she says apologetically, both her tone and expression laden with tiredness. “But I never thought everything will change so fast. I promise I’ll answer them, and I promise I’ll explain everything to you. I wasn’t―” she trails off for a tiny instant, admits in tone that is hushed and guilty and a little lost, “<em>ready</em>. I just need some time to get my own thoughts straight.” Mama meets Jyn’s eyes, a plea in them the most poignant Jyn has ever seen. “Okay, kiddo?”</p><p>It feels wrong to see mama so uneasy. She’d carried worry and sadness in her eyes and features for some time now back in their apartment on Coruscant, especially at night when Jyn sneaked out of her room when she couldn’t sleep and secretly caught glimpses of them, she had let her true feelings be unmasked when they visited Eilanes a few weeks back and were alone in an ancient cave, but this is somehow more, a strange new world in which it looks as if Jyn is not the only one confused and adrift. Mama said they’re safe, though, and in that Jyn trusts. And while she finds herself at loss for why they’ve left their home, mama’s promise represents something unquestionable in Jyn’s universe, a pure guarantee of answers later. It’s always been true and so she doesn’t doubt it, not one bit. It’s new, this fragile present of hers wrought with too many questions, but she holds on tight to a semblance of past stability.</p><p>Little Jyn smiles, rests her hand upon the crown of mama’s head, and sifts her fingers through the edge of her braid where Lyra’s hair is loose and wonderfully soft to the touch. “Yes, mama.”</p><p>This time a smile Lyra gifts her is radiant, a smile potent enough to wipe away any trace of anxiety from her eyes for a moment. She catches Jyn’s forearm, kisses her daughter’s hand, and leans away. “I need to talk to Saw and your papa for a bit,” Lyra states as she heads for her bag and opens it up. “Can you stay up there and watch a holo-show while I’m away? You’re agile, no doubts about that, but these bunks really weren’t designed for kids, love.”</p><p>Jyn scoots back to the bunk’s headboard wall and brings her knees close to her chest. “Will it be a good show?” she inquires a tad naughtily, looking down at mama with a glint in her eyes.</p><p>For all her worry, this companionable banter between mama and her still works. It feels familiar to her, soothing, and mama does chuckle at the challenge issued her way. “Actually, for a long time this was my most favorite show,” Lyra says and comes back to Jyn’s bunk with a datapad and a holoprojector in hand. “It’s a bit more serious than shows you usually watched before, but I think now it’s a good time for it. I hope I’m right,” she adds the last sentence in a quieter tone, unease creeping back into both her voice and features, but ultimately commits to her decision.</p><p>Quick to set up the holoprojector and the datapad, Lyra leaves both opposite of Jyn on her bunk and boots up the first episode. “Enjoy, but pay attention, Stardust,” mama instructs softly. “It will feel differently for you now than it will feel in, let’s say, ten years from now, but I think it might shed light on some the questions you have for me now. And afterwards ― we’ll talk.”</p><p>A wave of excitement lifting up her spirits considerably, Jyn settles down on her stomach, clutches a pillow with both arms, sets her chin upon it, and demands, “Tap <em>play</em>, then.” </p>
<hr/><p>The journey to Lah’mu is ridiculously lengthy, courtesy of the planet’s remote location and Saw’s paranoid insistence to take perhaps the longest possible, though safer routes in order to make the tracking of the ship carrying Ersos a task diametrically opposed to trivial.</p><p>And while it’s the longest Jyn can remember being stuck in the same place, nothing about this journey is boring or tedious. Yes, there’s certain tension in the air; Saw tries to mind his business in the cockpit for as much as he possibly can, clearly having certain reservations for sharing the space with his guests, mama and papa keep being uneasy and also spend quite some time discussing something with Saw mostly behind closed doors. From rare conversations that take place outside of the ship’s cockpit either by the bunks or a foldout table where the meals are shared Jyn gathers that for some reason her family is running from the Empire. The Empire is near-everywhere, so it must mean that they’re pretty much running from the entire galaxy, and even so the gravity of this predicament won’t quite settle on Jyn’s shoulders in a properly devastating way for years still.</p><p>And while all that uncertainty and worry of her parents and the notion that they’re hunted now does raise a plethora of questions and unnerves Jyn, at the same time it feels like a gift. Because for the first time in a long while her family came together and <em>stayed</em> together.</p><p>For the first two days it’s mostly mama who shares the watch party with Jyn. Yeah, she goes to talk to her husband and Saw too from time to time, but she makes it very clear that her priority is spending time with her daughter. Papa, on the other hand, either chooses to spend his time with Saw or otherwise occupies himself with a datapad on the opposite bunk for long hours, immersed into some kind of work like he often was through the nights back on Coruscant even after his workday ended. Soon, though, he seems to run out of things to write or read or review, departs to talk to Saw for another few hours, and comes back to truly stay.</p><p>Quiet, yet not nearly as withdrawn as he was in the recent months, Galen Erso sits on his bunk and properly watches the second half of the episode with his girls. As credits roll and Lyra slips from the bunk to whip up some instant porridge for dinner, Galen meets his daughter’s eyes, flashes her a shy smile, and asks, “Mind if I join you, Stardust?”</p><p>A little kindling flame of joy igniting with excitement in Jyn’s belly, she does her best to mimic the show’s main protagonist’s challenging smirk – a trademark expression Keisa flashes to Prince Santeri every time she tests him, which happens plenty ever since these two embarked on a still somewhat uneasy partnership. “Only if you dare.”</p><p>And papa laughs. It isn’t weak or forced or detached like laughs he’s been faking for the man in white in the last few months every time the caped man came to join the family for dinner. It’s that jovial, free kind of laugh that Jyn remembers from the times when things were easier between them, when papa was close and chose to spend as much time with her as he could instead of burying himself into his work.</p><p>“Oh, I dare, Stardust,” tells her Galen Erso softly, and while he’s not laughing anymore, his eyes and lips are smiling bright. He settles down next to her, taking Lyra’s place for now, and Jyn doesn’t waste time to latch herself to his side and grin happily when he wraps one of his arms around her and cradles her to him tight, with the same yearning for contact that she’s exhibiting.</p><p>Lyra, busy around the fold-out table, smiles. Her eyes look a little watery to Jyn, but she can tell the difference by now between the welling up of sadness and welling up of joy. Even though her life has turned upside down, this re-discovered closeness of her family feels inherently right.</p><p>So maybe, just maybe, this change is for the best. It’s what Jyn tells herself when she falls asleep, either alone on the upper bunk, or curled up next to either of her parents, or burrowing herself into a narrow space between them when they share a bunk. The white-armored toy troopers she used to play with and their life-sized, real counterparts that she had often seen on the streets of Coruscant mean something different to her now, instill a sense of worry into her instead of a sense of security and admiration she used to feel. When she dreams of them, and sometimes she does, she dreams of them scouting the streets in search for her and mama and papa just like the streets of Kemi Kingdom are full of traitorous King’s Guard out to find Prince Santeri and Keisa. But then she wakes up, realizes once again that they’re all together, remembers the fiery promise Saw made to her when she sneaked into the cockpit one early morning and demanded him to swear that Lah’mu will be safe for her family, and suddenly this strange new life of hers doesn’t seem all that gloomy.</p><p>It’s going to be different ― the further she gets in watching the show, the more she thinks she understands why mama decided to show it to her now (it’s still full of colors, but they represent the city and the kingdom whereas King’s Guard wears all black and protagonists choose duller colors to blend in easily in poorer parts of the city; the clothing main heroes wear isn’t fancy like in others shows, but strictly functional, something that seems comfortable to spend a day running and climbing either rooftops or catacombs beneath the city in; there’s plenty of humor and banter going around, especially between Santeri and Keisa, but the show doesn’t rely on exaggeratedly-cartoonish mimics and pranks; more often than not she has to pause and ask mama to explain some word or concept and mama patiently does; while there’s plenty of hope and heroes frequently find a way to beat the odds, their plans rarely ever work as expected and they lose or are betrayed more often than in any other story Jyn has seen before, and the road to their objectives is anything but straightforward)  ― but as more days of the journey pass she finds her own worry and fear abating.</p><p>She realizes that when the world’s out to get you, you should be prepared, careful, smart, and it always helps to have your family close, no matter if it’s family by blood or family by choice.</p><p>It’s not her place to know what mama and papa have in mind for the future ― at least for now ― but they’re together.</p><p>And like this, she believes, they can weather any storm.</p>
<hr/><p><em>Years later</em>, settled comfortably against her lover’s bare chest and proudly wearing naught but his shirt and panties for modesty, Jyn takes a sip of spiced wine and presses ‘play’ on her datapad to embark once again on a journey of rediscovering her favorite shows and sharing them a man who became her found family throughout long hyperspace trips in between assignments, a good tradition established during one of the weirdest missions of her life.</p><p>The watch is a familiar routine, a balanced back-and-forth between paying undivided attention to the show, pointing out special moments, and explaining certain things to Cassian who’s experiencing this animated masterpiece for the very first time.</p><p>“If I really think about it, it’s this show that helped me comprehend a lot of stuff,” she tells him thoughtfully afterwards in the ship’s main hold when they take a break from watching the show to cook some snacks and she has some time for reflection. Well, Cassian is prepping snacks, busy with whipping up a nice salad from salted fish, leftover mushrooms from yesterday’s meal, a bit of thinly sliced vegetables for a pinch of additional taste and mayo to go with some fancy bread she spotted in the spaceport’s bakery, whereas Jyn is choosing to watch him flex his culinary muscles and some upper body muscles alike from her favorite spot in the kitchen. Life’s not perfect, but damn it is <em>good</em> in quieter moments like these that they both keep stealing here and there when their tide of war ebbs after yet another rise or a dangerous storm they manage to survive. “Those sudden changes in their lives and all those wrenches thrown into their plans, the need to be extra careful with words and the weight of secrets, the meaning of resilience and hope, all the obvious yet much more realistic examples of how evil can manifest itself than you usually see in kid-oriented media, the value of good friendships, the roots of rebellions and opposing laws when they’re turned against the people. Maybe I’d still be who I am without it. But maybe not.”</p><p>“When the war came, you were prepared. As prepared as an eight year old could be for Saw’s upbringing and the challenges to come. And I suppose quite a few tricks from the show came in handy too when you started living as an outlaw on your own,” Cassian echoes her thought, a child who learned the horrors of the wars both ancient and those he’d seen with his own eyes even younger than she did, a child with a rebel’s heart that would make his ancestors proud, a child whose parents taught him many harsh truths about the galaxy before lust for power and intergalactic war rushed to snuff out their lives before either of them turned thirty. “History and art are weapons indeed. They explain and they inspire and they forge, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse.”</p><p>Jyn thinks it through and doesn’t hesitate when she corrects, matching her lover’s wit and insight and spicing the wisdom up with an old joke both incredibly private and recorded in the history of the Alliance, “For the pain of a journey and for light and hope you find and nurture along the way.”</p><p>The sound of Cassian’s kind laughter weaves around her heart like the gentlest of embraces, an inspired symphony to her ears. “I <em>knew</em> you can be nice about that phrase if you put your mind to it.”</p><p>Jyn cocks her head back, regards an unexpected smug grin reigning on Cassian’s face and a very special glint in his eyes with slightly narrowed eyes and well-founded suspicion. “You look too happy about it. It’s unnerving.”</p><p>Cassian shrugs languidly and turns his attention back to mixing up the ingredients and mayo. “There’s no satisfying you, is it?” he inquires rather jovially.</p><p>“Out with it.”</p><p>He glances back behind his shoulder, his body language and expression an epitome of relaxed innocence. “Nothing special, really. It’s just Kay owes me credits now.”</p><p>Gaze growing even more predatory, Jyn taps her fingers loudly against the tabletop. Oh, this has potential for turning out really damn fun. “What was your bet?”</p><p>“Kay was very rash to declare you’ll never make a reference to ‘<em>rebellions are built on hope</em>’ without any amount of sarcasm. Kudos to you for that, actually. It takes an impressive effort to make him petty enough to forego logical calculations and basic laws of probability purely out of spite. Whereas I have held out hope for the innocence of your heart and good graces, and so I have won rather massively.”</p><p>Wary of a too-suspicious silence ensuing in the wake of his confession, Cassian turns around in time to notice Jyn aiming to launch a kitchen towel in his direction and, agile as a damn nexu, ducks out of the way to let the garment fly both over his shoulder and food and land upon the empty part of the counter.</p><p>He even has the audacity to tilt his head to a side and click his tongue a tad mockingly, relishing in his victory. “Someone needs to work on her aim, no?”</p><p>And makes a strategic mistake of focusing back on the food.</p><p><em>Oh, honey, just you wait</em>, croons a naughty voice at the back of Jyn’s head as she, silent as a shadow, slips away from the counter and creeps up on Cassian. He probably knows she’s close, sharp spy-survivor instincts and all, but he keeps himself entrenched into the task. Jyn looks up at him, licks her lips with anticipation. His hair had grown out in these few months after the Naora mission. Not quite as long as it was when she had kissed him first, it still provides her a perfect amount of leverage to be able to tangle her fingers into the strands at the back of his head and tug at them to expose a long line of his throat to her mischief.</p><p>Twining herself around him the best she can without actually transferring her entire weight upon him, Jyn winds one arm snugly around his midsection, kisses a spot on the junction between his jaw and neck that she knows makes him a little lightheaded with pleasure, and licks an obscenely wet line from it to his pulse point with the tip of her tongue. “How’s that for my aim, sniper boy?” she inquires sweetly and tightens her grip around his hair just a little bit, right to the amount of force that’s quite arousing and yet not uncomfortable at all.</p><p>“Keep that up and you might just find out,” Cassian replies, tone roughened and perfectly kriffing <em>wrecked</em>.</p><p>Well, then, a playful Cassian to entertain her tonight? How sweet. And how thoughtful of her to rarely ever miss out on a challenge.</p><p>But before she gets to that, there’s one more thing left to do. “Hey, Tin Can?” Jyn calls loudly, making absolutely sure that Kay’s audio-receptors pick up on what she has to say. “Kindly thank you, my strategic metal friend,” she delivers in a rather sing-song voice.</p><p>A reply comes near immediately, slightly muffled by the cockpit’s door and delivered with a resigned, long-suffering, and somehow disinterested inflection, “Kindly relocate your horny asses to your room.”</p><p>Horny mischief will follow later, but for now both Jyn and Cassian tremble and attempt to contain the bouts of laughter. “Come on, how do you know?” demands Jyn around a quiet groan, half-embarrassment and half-curiosity. “You neither see us, nor should discern anything scandalous with your auditory sensors. Of that I’m sure.”</p><p>“True,” acquiesces the droid, deadpan, but in no galaxy at all that word can be the last he says in this conversation. “However, <em>everyone</em> on this ship knows I have had a displeasure of seeing more than I ever wanted to see about the two of you, and I also have more than enough auditory data of your flirting banter to extrapolate what will happen in the near future with a very slim margin of error.” Kay keeps his vocoder silent for a short while, only to enunciate at last and finish his thought in a rather prickly educational manner, “Facts.”</p><p>Force damn him, Jyn can’t help it, she snickers again. “Are you regretting knowing him right now?” she asks when she calms down a little, balancing her head on Cassian’s shoulder and looking up at him.</p><p>Cassian sighs, his features touched by joy and irony. “I kind of wish I regretted it a normal amount, but alas,” he tells Jyn in a slightly conspiring way.</p><p>“I heard that,” interjects Kay from the cockpit one more time, his tone more neutral now than before. “Oh, the things you organics do to get some,” he adds critically afterwards. “So uncivilized.”</p><p>Hello laughter their somewhat recent loyal friend.</p><p>“You were the one who pestered me for years that I should think about getting some. So no, you <em>don’t</em> get to complain about it now,” shoots back Cassian a tad indignantly and rests his head against Jyn’s. “Should we at least attempt to be less predictable every once in a while?” he wonders in a painfully-fake, even more private way than before.</p><p>She presses her lips back to his neck and gently bites into his skin, determined to make a very meaningful educational point of her own. “Don’t you <em>dare</em> playing with this fire, spyboy.”</p><p>They do come back to watching the show that evening.</p><p>Eventually.</p>
<hr/><p>Perched up on her father’s shoulders, Jyn has the best spot next to the ship’s viewport and Lah’mu is the sight to behold once Saw guides the vessel out of hyperspace at last. The rings circling Lah’mu look incredible against the black canvass of space and the black, green, and blue marble-like ornament of the planet’s surface, but silhouetted against the sky when viewed from within the planet’s orbit they’re something else entirely. Saw has told them quite a lot about the world, the state of its colonization and inhabitants and their basic beliefs along with politics, so while its pristine nature isn’t quite a surprise, it still looks vastly different not only from Coruscant, but even from mostly agricultural planets. As Saw guides the ship towards the planet’s eastern hemisphere and away from its only big spaceport on the west, there’s no air traffic whatsoever. The planet’s surface isn’t littered by proper cities, the settlements are very far and few in between, and pretty much unnoticeable unless you get deep within the orbit. A celebration of colors and nature, it really does look and feel untouched, just like papa had described it when he first went over the maps and holos of it.</p><p>Saw chooses to travel low and guides the vessel close to the ocean. From there he takes it to the continent and the journey continues along the coastline where black-sanded beaches alternate with green mossy hills or sharp, steep cliffs. A good twenty minutes later a mostly narrow line of the beaches gives way to spacious low-lands by the ocean, black sand parted in places by narrow canals running from the hills and to the big body of water. Further away from the ocean sand gives way to small fields of short, but verdant greenery, with most of them concentrated close to a small house built at the bottom of the hill that barely stands out against the black sand covering the hill.</p><p>The old soldier gently sets the ship close to the homestead but safely away from the fields, warranting a longer than expected walk towards the house: the sand is damp, and while it doesn’t squelch beneath Jyn’s tiny feet like liquid mud, it certainly gives way even under her rather diminutive weight and slows down her steps. The closer they come to the house, the more pronounced a sharp smell of chemical becomes.</p><p>Galen, hand firm around Jyn’s, sniffs at it and glances at Saw who marches by his side quite confidently despite the sand giving way the most under the weight of his armor. “Is that paint?”</p><p>“It was <em>white</em> before,” Saw states with no small amount of critical disdain. As if the fact has kicked his favorite pet tooka. Jyn has to contain a giggle before it escapes her when she thinks of this comparison. “Figured you’d appreciate the redecoration effort. My―” he pauses a little, an infinitesimal tilt of his head allowing him to look at Jyn from the corner of his eye, “friends seemed to have left this part of renovation for the very end.”</p><p>There’s nothing in terms of common leisure places anywhere in sight around the house, but the sheer amount of space around the farmstead appeals to Jyn. It looks vast, feels free and kind of blessedly crowd-less after Coruscant, a perfect place to run around in and explore. The house itself is a more complicated matter. It’s not as if it unnerves Jyn or anything, but she’s not sure she likes it. The layout is different, a single room of unusual shape divided a bit into sections instead of clear-cut rooms with doors and all. The entire place is smaller than the apartment she called home before. And it’s <em>dark</em>. On Coruscant, so close to the sky, her former home was more often than not sunlit during the days and through the nights millions of urban lights illuminating the city that never ever slept made shadows in her room very soft, welcoming. In here there are no windows, and even with the yellow light of many lamps most of the homestead looks dim and somewhat uninviting.</p><p>That does put a damper into her mood, but she’s bright enough to realize that there’s no going back to their old home and that whining about this is childish. And childish is the last thing Jyn Erso wants to be, not at her proud age of almost five whole years. Saw is showing mama and papa around the house, the adults back to talking in hushed tones which means they’re back to discussing something serious. Jyn rakes her gaze upon their backs, kicks her feet in the air from her perch upon their new kitchen table. On the one hand she could stay here, there’s a big chance, after all, that mama intended for her to simply sit in place and not get in the way given that she chose to put her down here. But it’s a bit boring, useless, not to mention quite unkind to her loyal companions.</p><p>Decision made, Jyn deftly climbs down and starts rummaging through the bags she knows are full of her things.</p><p>Naturally her first target is the toys ― the ones she managed to snatch together with mama in the rush of their mysterious escape from home, that is ― and finds new places for them to rest around the bed papa said will be hers. There might be no windows in the house, but a space is carved out right next to her bed in a shape of one, deep enough into the wall and big enough to fit most of her toys. Then she, not without effort and huffing irritably at her lack of sheer strength when the thing won’t quite yield, pries open a storage compartment beneath the bed and stuffs her clothes in there.</p><p>Lyra is still busy listening to Saw as the three adults stand next to some kind of a digital panel in the kitchen, but she notices Jyn’s housekeeping efforts and acknowledges them with a grateful, radiant smile.</p><p>Soon papa walks out of the house together with Saw. Mama stays behind, washes a few shuura fruits and slices them into neat twin pieces. Jyn, quite hungry and never needing to be reminded twice about basic hygiene, climbs the kitchen counter, washes her hands, eagerly accepts the piece of fruit and quickly stuffs it into her mouth, humming quietly under her breath and closing her eyes in pleasure at the rich, sweet taste and juicy structure of the treat.</p><p>Lyra puts the rest of the fruits into a recyclable plate, rinses her hands. Shutting off the water, she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and nods to herself. Then she meets her daughter’s eyes and offers her a hand. “Come, Stardust. I made you a promise. I think now it’s a good time to own up to it.”</p><p>Hands held together, mother and daughter walk out of the house and head upon the black sands of their new home past the fields towards a dark, calm ocean.</p><p>“I suppose technically this story begins with the Clone Wars,” says Lyra, her hand tightening around Jyn’s. “You most likely don’t remember it―” she pauses then, casts a questioning yet tense glance at Jyn, to which Jyn shrugs and shakes her head sincerely, “―but it was a time of great sadness and conflict for the galaxy. Time of injustice, time of many bad things. The Empire became the main ruler through the galaxy right after them. One can even say it ended the war. And it made promises. Promise to right the wrongs that led to that conflict, promise to never let it happen again, promise to protect, and be just, and stand for light against the darkness.” Mama’s lips tighten up into a thin line, her eyebrows drawing, her gaze growing somehow sharp and distant as she looks at the horizon. “Alas, similar to King Nermes who betrayed the crown in the show, it made promises it probably never planned to keep.”</p><p>At this point in their binge-watch the rebellion succeeds at last, King Nermes is removed from power and banished away from the kingdom, but he and his followers are still costing newly-crowned King Santeri and his Queen Keisa a great deal of trouble and setbacks in trying to right the ship of governing into the direction of justice and caring for all people, not only rich and chosen ones who bargain their loyalty for gold. He’s despicable, <em>former</em> King Nermes. At this point of her life Jyn considers that promises are sacred, and he made them left and right and mostly made conscious choices to lie using those promises as he went along. A person like that isn’t worthy of power, isn’t worthy of trust, of admiration, of respect. Those are the lessons from her parents she has learned well.</p><p>She tugs at mama’s hand, the gesture swift to glue her attention back to Jyn, and tips her chin down into a serious nod, indicating that she understands how the Empire isn’t their friend, that she trusts mama’s judgement on the matter, and at least some of the sharpness in Lyra’s features recedes.</p><p>They reach the edge of the field, and there mama chooses to stop. She crouches next to thin, green plants, reaches out her hand to touch those delicately-looking leaves. “Your father has a dream. And, what is most important in this case, he perhaps has a mind to make it come true. The Empire is interested in this dream, but it wants to use it differently. Where your father approaches the idea from a good point of view, from something built on kindness and hope, the Empire looks at it as an opportunity to control, to instill fear. That’s not right. That’s not what your father wants, not how history should remember him. And the only good way to stop the Empire from using your father’s mind for their twisted benefit was to run before it was too late.”</p><p>“And so we did,” says Jyn quietly and mimics Lyra’s motions. The leaf she touches is surprisingly soft to the touch, its structure delicate and slightly fuzzy. She grins at the sensation. “Santeri did not expect his life would change that night, but it did. And even if it was sudden, he just had to run.”</p><p>“Indeed,” echoes Lyra. “Sometimes the best-made plans fail. Sometimes life throws a wrench at you unexpectedly and you just adapt. It’s unfair and kind of scary, but that’s just the way it is.”</p><p>The plant explored, Jyn finds her gaze drifting towards the wild ocean again. On Coruscant, you found water thanks to plumbing, in fountains, and in building-confined pools. She has seen the ocean only once before, on Eilanes, but the weather was too stormy during their short stay when they had a bit of free time to explore and take a trip to the edge of the continent, so they never ventured nowhere near close enough to reach out and touch the ocean. Jyn straightens back up, steals one more piece of fruit from the plate balancing in mama’s lap, and jerks her head impatiently into the water’s direction.</p><p>Lyra is quick to get the clue. She follows Jyn’s example by taking a piece of fruit for herself and they get underway again. “Will we stay here for long?” Jyn asks, glancing over her shoulder at the house they’ve left behind. In her peripheral vision she spots papa and Saw emerging from some kind of cave close to the homestead and starting to ascend the hill by the house. “Or will we soon run again?”</p><p>Mama considers the question carefully. “We hope to stay. The more we travel, the bigger is the risk we might get recognized. Lah’mu doesn’t get a lot of visitors, it’s quiet, and there’s no Imperial presence here at all. I think this would be a good place for us. And especially for you.”</p><p>“Papa―” Jyn frowns, “―he didn’t do anything wrong, did he? Apart from running. He’s not a―<em>symbol</em>, like Santeri. He’s no danger to the Empire, right? Why would they search for us everywhere?”</p><p>Lyra sighs, her gaze now sharp as daggers. It’s the kind of gaze Jyn recognizes ― mama used to look that way at the man in white when he wasn’t looking. “Orson had made a promise to the Empire. And that was the promise he very much intends to keep. I don’t think it will end for him well if he doesn’t. The problem is ― there’s a big chance he can’t keep it without your father. Orson is stubborn, very much so. We should expect him to scour the entire galaxy for us. And so we must be careful. And do everything we can to be invisible to him.”</p><p>Jyn nags her bottom lip as she mulls the idea over. “Do we get cool sneaky names for hiding?” she asks a tad shyly, a glint in her eyes. “Like everyone called Prince Santeri Reikke in public up ever since he escaped the palace and up until he became King and it was safe for him to be who he really is? Like the streets knew Keisa as the Lynx?”</p><p>“As a matter of fact, we do,” confirms mama in a positively teasing voice and leaves it at that.</p><p>Jyn pouts, tugs at mama’s hand with quite meaningful force and urgency. “Come on, do tell!” she nearly whines.</p><p>“All right, all right,” surrenders Lyra around a laugh, drifting away from Jyn as they encounter a stray boulder on the way and pass it with their hands held over it. “From now if anyone but us asks, your name is Essa Fero. I will go by Odeia, and your father is Dechior Fero. They’re local names, shouldn’t raise any eyebrows around here.”</p><p>“Essa…” Jyn enunciates, testing the way this alias feels on her tongue, and does the same with mama’s and papa’s new names. Papa’s is a bit harder, Lyra pronouncing it with a slight accent. Jyn doesn’t get there the first two times, but on the third attempt, listening some more to mama repeating the name and experimenting with the way it rolls off her tongue, she nails the name at last. “Pretty,” she approves, beaming up and skipping with excitement next to mama as they inch closer to the ocean. “Do we get cool backstories I need to memorize?” Jyn demands next, remembering the entire fake life history Keisa came up with for Santeri and insisted he’d learn by heart should anyone ever ask him any personal questions.</p><p>Lyra’s eyebrows arch delicately in reflection of genuine wonder and pride. She lets go of Jyn’s hand only to wrap her arm around her daughter’s shoulders and cradle her close for a moment. “When you’re engaged, your attention to detail can rival your father’s,” she admits. “And, yes, you will be getting cool homework,” mama adds as she strokes the crown of Jyn’s head with her palm and catches her hand in hers again. “It will be Galen’s task, though. Can’t steal all of his thunder, after all. Some of it, sure, that’s sacred, but not all,” she concludes with a mirthful chuckle.</p><p>Appeased by the answers, Jyn grins and casts a glance towards the ocean again. It’s getting closer by the minute, not a thing of distant dreams anymore, and her patience is quick to fray. Especially quick because to be active and outdoors is just her thing, at least a few hours of such fun needed to appease her restlessness. And, after more than a week of being locked into confines of a starship, she is getting restless indeed. Restless and beyond. Mischievous, she cranes her head and looks up at mama. “Tag, you’re it,” Jyn exclaims pretty much at the same time with laughter bubbling up in her chest, taps mama’s hip, and whisks away like a little, but infinitely swift comet, free to chase the ocean.</p><p>She runs and doesn’t look back, stops only when she’s a few steps away from her goal. Mama’s close ― still too close for Jyn’s liking, curse her short legs, one day she’ll run so fast no one ever will be able to catch her! ― but she too breathes quite hard for this run was certainly not a sprint.</p><p>“And I thought you were wickedly fast and hard to keep up with when you figured out how to be firm on your feet,” commends and complains Lyra humorously, heading for a small boulder to the left of Jyn on the shore. “Scratch that thought, <em>hard</em>.”</p><p>Okay, she may not be as fast as she wants to be, but she’s still impressive. She’ll take that. Jyn nods, giggles happily, and approaches the water at last. This ocean looks very calm, the waves barely worrying and not really threatening to wash over her boots, its waters especially dark here upon the obsidian-colored beach. But up close the water is crystal clear, nothing like the rust-tinted river of a big city she has witnessed from the ship during a trip with mama half a year or so back or the foul-smelling, greenery-infested waters in a river close to the cave they’ve visited on Eilanes.</p><p>Fascinated, she reaches out for the ocean with her fingertips, dips them experimentally into the water. It’s really cold, cold like the lowest setting of water in their bathroom on Coruscant, a very far cry from an ocean in the show’s wondrous kingdom that must have been very welcoming, given that Santeri and Keisa had a privilege to enjoy a swim in it from time to time.</p><p>Jyn mopes and adds a rather disappointed ‘aww’ to highlight just how much this feels like a betrayal. “Does it get any warmer in the summer here?” she asks, though without much hope. Maybe it’s the color scheme of the beach and surrounding hills, maybe it’s the distinct lack of special trees that grow where it’s warm, but she somehow gets a feeling that she won’t get what she wants in terms of swimming fun here.</p><p>“A bit,” admits Lyra and shrugs a little. “But not by much, no. Not to worry, though, Stardust. I did a bit of reading up on this place; there are quite a few hot springs further up north close to the bigger settlements. I will take you there, often. So fear not for your swimming skills ― none of those pool lessons will go to waste.”</p><p>Her mood swings right back into cheerfulness. Leaving cold water behind her, Jyn comes close to mama and, waiting by her legs until she gets the hint and lifts the half-empty plate with fruits from her lap, quickly claims the freed spot for herself. She takes a piece of fruit with a hand she didn’t stick into the water or touched the leaves before, brings it close to Lyra’s mouth. Mama smiles and accepts the treat. Jyn picks up a snack for herself and considers her new future. “So, we won’t just keep to this place?” she clarifies, eyes trained upon the homestead they’ve left behind them.</p><p>“This will be our new home, your father will be a farmer, but I know him all too well to foolishly agree to live off whatever he’ll grow here,” states mama with witty, critical kind of fondness. “Besides, remember, locking a girl into a tower and keeping her away from the galaxy is never a key to happiness. There’s no way I’ll do that to you, love. There must be more to life than that, even when you’re running and hiding.”</p><p>The words ring true, especially when Lyra rests her chin upon the crown of Jyn’s head. Jyn snatches one more piece of fruit, takes her time with finishing this one off, and mulls her thoughts over until another question forms in mind. “Is there someone to fight the Empire?” she asks at last. “Like rebels in the show? Someone to look out for the little guys like Keisa did, someone like Santeri to be a ruler worthy of his people? Someone to say ‘no’ when they’re being lied to and see through the lies?”</p><p>It takes a bit of time for mama to answer, but she comes through, voice gentle and quiet. “There are, Stardust. But the journey only begins. I’m afraid it will take time to take down something as huge as the Empire.”</p><p>Jyn narrows her eyes, daring to push the matter a bit more. “Is Saw one of them?”</p><p>Lyra huffs, impressed. “What <em>does</em> escape your attention, kiddo?”</p><p>“Duh, he looks soldiery,” dismisses the easy victory Jyn. “He’s a bit like King Nermes’ general, fancy armor and all. Only helping the good guys instead of hunting them.”</p><p>“You know what―” Lyra leans back a little and glances down at Jyn with a naughty twinkle in her dark eyes, “―I <em>am</em> kind of tempted to see you declare that to his face.”</p><p>Jyn replies with a mirthful smirk, slipping down from mama’s lap, and tugging her hand insistently to make this mischief come true.</p>
<hr/><p>Saw reacts to the comparison with a completely flat expression, but admits gruffly to Lyra when he thinks Jyn’s not close enough to eavesdrop, “That one’s a silver-tongued trooper, I’ll give you that.”</p><p>Jyn counts it as a very impressive victory.</p>
<hr/><p><em>Years later</em>, she witnesses something both incredibly stupid and, in hindsight, also kind of incredibly brave. Not that it wins the culprit any tangible points of respect.</p><p>An old soldier disheartened by the seeming futility of insurgent cause, a man seeks out Imperial graces for a payday. He risks building trust and rapport with Saw Gerrera’s crew only to lure them into a traitorous trap. It’s a sheer miracle that a half of their Partisan unit makes it out alive from that skirmish: a testament to their power of will, ability to fight no matter what with a nexu’s fierceness to their very last breath, and a few bad choices from Imperial command.</p><p>The traitor gets away as well. But it won’t do at all ― the Lion of Onderon isn’t known for his kindness to backstabbing snakes ― and so he sends arguably his very best weapon to the hunt for honor, for revenge, for blood.</p><p>It’s a long game, longer than she honestly expected, a complex tangle of hide and seek. The traitor’s good, not a rookie by any means but a hardened survivor. She, however, is a force of nature too, Saw’s best tracker after all, and she’s always been spurred on and inspired by a challenge. Trained by Saw herself, she follows the faintest of trails and finds the flimsiest of leads. Swift and silent and invisible like a wraith lurking in the shadows if she puts her mind to it, Jyn tracks her prey, springs a trap of her own, and finalizes the capture without alerting any of his potential allies to it. A man disappears from the ugly face of Nar Shaddaa without a trace.</p><p>“Excellent as ever,” notes Saw when he arrives to the Smuggler’s Moon a few days later, gruff but warm as he nods to her and comes closer to the traitor. The unfortunate soldier is blindfolded, bound, gagged, and still a little sluggish from all the drugs Jyn used to keep him down and docile.</p><p>She bows her head in response, face mostly impassive save for clear recognition of Saw’s authority and show of respect, and steps aside. She’s fifteen, still woefully not tall enough, and it won’t do at all to show much elation from such praise before the soldiers in Saw’s entourage. Some of them know her for a while, some are newer to the Partisans, but to all of them she’s something more than Saw’s adopted daughter. To them she holds her place due to her talents, competence, resolve, holds it because she earned it by besting them, by proving her worth to every skeptic. They don’t talk about it ― never did and never will ― but she knows well enough that she’s being subtly groomed to be Saw’s heir, the next in the symbolic lineage for leading the fight for the cause. Honor and burden like that, they come with a price, with a certain reputation, with an image to support.</p><p>One more step and Saw towers over the traitor. Having no desire to grant him any words, he grabs the guy by his hair, roughly forces his head back, unwinds the tight blindfold so that he could look him in the eyes, and removes the gag. The two men lock gazes.</p><p>It’s a potent moment, a dark kind of tense electricity hanging in the air. Blood will be spilled here today, a man’s life will end. Not an eye for an eye by any means ― one life is nothing against betrayal and loss of so many soldiers who could’ve lived another day to fight for the cause ― but it is a form of justice, one more crimson tale in the legend of Saw Gerrera.</p><p>Jyn sees the moment when the heavy, irrefutable gravity of the situation settles upon the traitor’s shoulders by the way his dark violet skin turns a much paler shade, something close to lavender now. But he doesn’t beg for his life, doesn’t apologize in between miserable sobs like many would be in his place.</p><p>He looks Saw Gerrera in the eyes and, mere minutes away from execution, cynically mocks and condemns his futile cause and an almost life-long dream of free Onderon and galaxy free of rulers who abuse their power.</p><p>The Lion of Onderon lets him finish this inspired, rather fiery tirade of a man who has got nothing to lose anymore and is way too done with life to care for it, and then breaks his jaw with one powerful, brutal punch. She doesn’t turn away, just shakes her head a little with absolute absence of remorse in her expression.</p><p>That’s right. There are some bluffs you can’t get away with, some sins you can’t escape, some outbursts of emotion that leave you worse for wear when you should have contained yourself, been smarter, more patient. There are moments when you’re better off knowing your place.</p><p>One does not simply taunt a deadly warrior that is Saw Gerrera and escapes unscathed or without suffering the consequences of such an ill-conceived choice.</p><p>(That is, only if you’re <em>family</em> and do it out of pure humor and goodwill, a secret both the Lion and the Cub of Onderon guard with utmost fierceness even from the most trusted of Partisans.)</p>
<hr/><p>Her life on Lah’mu is different from her life on Coruscant. It takes a bit of time to get used to it, but once Jyn does ― she loves it more than that thing of the past, no regrets and no looking back with nostalgic yearning.</p><p>Weather around their homestead is prone to be coldish and damp and gloomy, sky is painted in rich tones of grey more often than not, but with the right clothing it’s not much of a bother and there’s something to be said about running around in the rain upon the beach or watching ocean worry from up close. When the elements are too unwelcome to stay outside, Jyn gets to spend an abundance of time with <em>both</em> of her parents: watching holo-shows and movies, learning how to read, making mama or papa read to her because she simply loves their voices, discovering more and more about the universe as her parents educate her, playing with many toys papa makes for her with his own hands. Once every few days they take trips to the nearest village at the other side of the hill to buy supplies, carefully socialize with locals at the inn, or the small market square, and Jyn gets to play with other kids all around the place. The new names are easy on her tongue and mind, and she never slips. It’s new, this game with high stakes and secrets she has to keep, with a fake life story she has memorized by heart and shares with other kids with great care and caution, but just like her favorite thief and prince are trying to survive on the streets she plays the game with utmost dedication.</p><p>About a month into living on Lah’mu Lyra Erso, having explored bigger settlements up north, makes her promise come true. In the evening, mere hours before the chrono will mark the slow dawn of a new day and officially make Jyn a year older, she finishes reading the chapter of the book to Jyn and puts the datapad away.</p><p>No surprise to absolutely anyone in the household yet alone herself, Jyn pouts, stubborn and too entrenched into the story to give up when it starts to truly blossom after all that buildup. “Come on, she had just bonded with her dragon! They can share thoughts, become true friends. I want to know more.”</p><p>Mama smiles and reaches out to bump the pad of her index finger against the tip of Jyn’s scrunched up nose. “And you will, just tomorrow. For tonight you go to sleep earlier.”</p><p>“But I don’t wanna,” Jyn presses the point and crosses her arms against her chest, trying her best to be stalwart and a little intimidating. Why does that seem to often work with adults, but doesn’t work for her at all? It’s so <em>unfair</em>. “It’s too early. And it’s my birthday tomorrow. Surely I can stay up longer? I’m <em>almost</em> older.”</p><p>Lyra tilts her head back a little, her expression going both mischievous and nonchalant. “You could,” she nearly drawls with a hint of naughtiness, effective in leveling the playing field. “Or you could go to sleep now, wake up at four in the morning, and go for a trip up north with me. Watch the sunrise, see a new place, and enjoy your gift.”</p><p>“What will it be, Stardust?” papa’s voice weaves into the conversation. Seated by the kitchen table, Galen Erso is dedicating his mind to finishing yet another e-book on farming. “A small reward now or showing a bit of patience to grab a better treat?”</p><p>Lightning-fast, Jyn flops into a reclined position and burrows herself under the blanket. From out of the cover she hides beneath with a giddy giggle, mama’s laughter in reaction to this sounds muffled but no less charming.</p><p>“A wise choice, Stardust,” Lyra approves warmly.</p>
<hr/><p>She doesn’t fall asleep right away, even though she tries. It’s a quiet night, with weather calm and no patter of rain outside to distract her, and the dim light of a lamp on its lowest setting never interfered with Jyn’s sleep, but she stays up wide awake in bed past midnight. Mind abuzz, she imagines instead. Will it be the same landscape further up north, black sands and moss-covered hills, little to no trees, either lone farm houses or tiny settlements? What is the gift mama came up with? Between those questions she daydreams of befriending a dragon like Ellara did in the book, of what it could possibly feel like, to soar upon the back of one high in the skies, beyond the clouds, feeling the wind and heights in a way that a starship will never replicate; daydreams of adventures Keisa and Santeri are up to, of one day seeing the Empire fall the same way King Nermes did.</p><p>She’s fantasizing one moment and the next one she’s asleep. Waking up is odd like that too, an easy and instantaneous switch into awareness. Jyn checks the glowing chrono on her bedstand ― it’s ten whole minutes before the alarm mama have set on it ― considerately turns it off, and slips out from under of the blanket. The kitchen lit up by a few dim lights that are always kept on is blessedly free of Galen Erso; it looks like the man followed common sense and had retired instead of spending the entire night up and reading like he so often did back on Coruscant. Jyn smiles to the fact approvingly (she noticed, of course, how less gaunt papa looks when he started getting more sleep and stopped being maniacally locked on to a task) and proceeds to fix up breakfast as quietly as it’s possible, cognizant of letting both her parents sleep some more. It’s an easy routine: grab some yogurt from the fridge, pick up a container with slightly sweetened rolled oats and nuts, and mix the two in a bowl. She’s through with the task by the time mama wakes up ― before the alarm too, she must be as excited for today as Jyn is herself, then ― and joins her in the kitchen.</p><p>Lyra beams up, noticing there’s a bowl of food waiting for her by her usual place at the dinner table, all mixed up and ready. “Thanks, Stardust,” she murmurs quietly, a love gesture in hushed tone to let her husband sleep some more, sits down opposite of Jyn, and makes quick work of her breakfast.</p><p>They dress up afterwards with no fuss, grab a couple of small backpacks, stuff the snack Lyra prepared last evening for the trip into them ― Jyn insists to carry her food all by herself, that’s what heroes do, they’re pretty independent ― and head out of the house, all without waking Galen up.</p><p>“Yes,” Jyn lets loose her excitement when mama heads for the cave they keep their airspeeder at. As much as she enjoys the walks and hikes, it’s always a treat to ride in a hovering vehicle.</p><p>At first most of her attention is on the world around her. It’s the first full sunrise she’s awake for, and the mystic interplay of colors absolutely mesmerizes her. Darkness of a star-spangled sky softens along a small strip of space on the horizon, a thin line of dark orange bleeding into mustard yellow that in turn flows into a dark greenish-blue tone. As minutes pass by quick, light dilutes the colors, a beautiful white glow spreading with rapid speed to consume the space between horizon and dark clouds overhead. The shape of clouds grows more pronounced, their puffy waves dark against the white and lightening-blue and soon canvass more yellow than it is blue. Soon the thinnest of clouds grow tinted by a soft pink color, with white on the horizon giving back in to yellow and orange tones.</p><p>And then the sun rises ― a brilliant white-yellow orb of radiance with rays cast across the dark land. It makes the sky shift into blue tones again, makes the clouds become their familiar white. It rises and rises, banishing the orange tones across the horizon and plunging the world back into soft darkness for a bit before ultimately leaving it basking in the mellow light of a cloudy morning.</p><p>“Wow,” Jyn breathes out when the world settles into familiar views and colors at last, mouth agape with excitement and a wide smile.</p><p>“It is something else, isn’t it?” mentions Lyra conversationally, hands firm at the airspeeder’s steering. “I fell in love with sunrises when my mom had this phase of painting them for almost a year. I was in school by then, so a big no-no to wake up too early during the week days, but on the weekends I’d go to sleep earlier, wake up before the crack of dawn, and accompany her to the roof of the old observatory at the edge of the city at the highest point around the capital. She’d take it all in as it unfolded, experiment with paints to try and get all these unreal colors right, and then would spend a few hours painting from her memory. After that, no matter which new place I went to, I always had to see sun rise there at least once.”</p><p>Jyn listens to mama’s words attentively, trying her best to imagine how it’s been. Selma Åmal became a casualty of the Clone Wars before Jyn grew old enough to remember her grandmother from holo-calls she and Lyra shared. She only ever travelled to Aria Prime for Selma’s funeral, and she remembers none of that: nor the city, nor the house where mama grew up, nor the crowded ceremony where hundreds of people came to pay respects to the late iconic artist. She only has holos and photos to remember Selma by, but none of those really hold up to honor her life, her memory. They don’t really help all that well to see how Selma looked when she painted with a much younger Lyra by her side.</p><p>It’s odd and sad, Jyn finds, to wish to know someone who’s gone, and be stuck only with a dream that will never come true. Mama is smiling though when she walks down memory lane. Tinted with graceful sadness as it is, it’s still a smile, and it goes a long way to soothe her daughter, especially since this makes her heart go heavy, not broken.</p><p>(Not broken <em>yet</em>, and reeling from loss for a lifetime.)</p><p>Her attention drifts off to the sensation of the journey itself. The ride is swift ― whereas papa handles the speeder in a manner perhaps too subdued, a kind of control that’s too deliberate and slightly tense, mama prefers speeds that are considerable but not reckless. Jyn’s no expert on the matter by any means, but there’s a sense of style to how mama handles it, a noticeable ease to the way the machine responds to Lyra’s actions. There’s trust there that results in a journey both exciting and smooth.</p><p>Jyn fiddles with the seatbelt holding her firmly in place, wiggles her feet over the seat as she imagines herself controlling this same speeder when she’s older. “You’re so much better at this than papa.”</p><p>Mama chuckles, the curve of her smile wider than the last one in reflection of genuine pleasure. “I would hope so. Would be a shame to have my racing years go to waste.”</p><p><em>What</em>? “Racing?”</p><p>“Drove my first tiny speeder when I was four,” reveals Lyra. On the horizon landscape changes, mossy hills giving way to higher hills littered with bushes and small trees and a big waterfall slanting down into a spacious river valley. “Mom loved watching races. She was never into trying out the sport herself, but she thought she’d take me to the kid’s track and see if I’d like it. I did, and so I raced up until I was fifteen and won our planetary championship.”</p><p>Eyebrows near-past her hairline, for a moment Jyn simply stares. It’s cool and all ― honestly, she’s giddy to know just how badass her mama is ― but this story also has a continuation that absolutely does not compute. “So you could’ve been a real racer. And you chose studying rocks?” she clarifies, incredulous.</p><p>“When you reach a certain level in sports, love, you need to make a choice.” Mama directs the speeder into a graceful arch, skirting close enough to the waterfall for the move to be exciting and far enough for it to still be safe. The hundreds of tiny sprinkles from the water wash over the vehicle, making Jyn giggle with joy at the sensation of tiny particles of cool water touch her face. “You either commit most of your time to be the best and reach brilliance or choose another path in life. What was your hobby, a way to spend time with fun is bound to become your job. Sometimes chasing that excellence becomes an obsession. You miss out on other things, things that may be less exciting, but no less important to you. There is also little space for friendships on that path. I never quite understood it myself, but when you hit a certain height in a sport your mates become rivals, often even enemies. Winning can matter more than being a good person. I didn’t want that. And, as much as I loved the thrill of racing, it didn’t feel like something I should commit to. So I turned away.”</p><p>A little begrudgingly, Jyn has to admit that the reasoning makes sense. “But <em>rocks</em>?” she prods again. “After <em>speeds</em>?”</p><p>Lyra glances at Jyn for a moment, her expression one of those Jyn learned to identify like thought-provoking when it’s directed to her. “Rocks, kiddo, are no joke too. They’re special and quiet and ancient, filled with knowledge. Most rocks are older than any species native to any world, you know? When you study rocks, you pretty much study the formation of entire worlds, learn stories that only those rocks remember. Thanks to them I’ve travelled a lot, I’ve learned, and in a way rocks are responsible for leading me to your father. No speed and thrill can compare with the gift of having you and him in my life. I’d never choose another path, even if I had a chance to do it all again.”</p><p>“<em>Rocks</em>,” she grumbles again under her breath, but there’s no incredulity or ire in her tone, just joy from using a private joke she’d found so unexpectedly.</p><p>For a moment mama looks unimpressed, then naughty right after. “You weren’t complaining at all when rocks allowed you to slip away from Coruscant with me and visit some cool caves,” points out Lyra wisely and strokes her kyber crystal absentmindedly. “In this household we all hold rocks in very high regard, young bandit, and I won’t have them being disrespected.”</p><p>But she laughs in response right afterwards, genuinely enjoying that little childish jab, and this cements it. It’s a family joke Jyn never lets go of.</p>
<hr/><p>Bushes and small trees across the hills give way to proper forests and high grass instead of moss. After Coruscant so much green is a welcome contrast, a gift, and it feels ludicrous that for a short amount of time Jyn’s heart dared to miss the lifeless familiarity of its night lights and buzzing traffic. Even air smells different here, and it’s hard to put it into words, but it feels easier, cleaner.</p><p>“We’re close by,” notes Lyra as she directs the airspeeder up the biggest chain of hills they’ve flew over yet an hour and a half into their journey, cognizant of Jyn bound to get restless sooner rather than later at this point.</p><p>And indeed they are.</p><p>The range of hills gives way to a valley with a web of small rivers nourished from a cascade of waterfalls and springs at the next system of hills. Like lifelines, those rivers flow within the biggest village Jyn has ever seen on Lah’mu, perhaps not a village but even a city by the planet’s point of view, its many small white wooden houses with auburn-tiled roofs conquering the small rock formations along the rivers and leaving the strips of land for gardens with many pink-petaled trees unlike any other on the planet so far and farmlands. It’s a city of bridges and archways too, with bridges connecting the many rocky islands and archways providing decorations with their wooden frames serving as homes for verdant vine-like lime-tinted plants. There are bigger buildings here too: a structure that looks a warehouse, something resembling a round, close-domed theater, two small villages within a city surrounded by fancy wooden fences, a few-stories houses here and there, built either for bigger families or a few families to share, and they’re all places that still are faithful to the city’s style and integrating into it seamlessly.</p><p>“Pretty, isn’t it?” mentions mama matter-off-factly, glancing at Jyn from out of the corner of her eyes with a joyful smile.</p><p>“Wicked,” Jyn asserts, breathing out in awe.</p><p>Lyra directs the speeder to the edge of the valley past the houses to the place where locals keep their own airspeeders or bikes. Helping Jyn climb out of the vehicle, she takes her hand and together they walk upon the closest pathway through the city towards the springs and waterfalls. The place is buzzing with activity in a very non-intimidating way; locals seem to be gathered mostly outside. Kids are running all around the place, engaged into various group games and generating a lot of joyful laughter, many adults are enjoying conversations between themselves, or attending to various crafting activities ― knitting and embroidery and toy-making and one young man is even crafting pottery at a small workshop by his house ― or simply relishing the rare occasion of near-cloudless now morning and warmer than usual sunlight as they sit in wooden rocking chairs with a cup of beverage, a pastry, and either a datapad or an actual book.</p><p>“This city is called Rhei’as,” explains Lyra as they walk past a big market in the heart of the village, a circular place established around the biggest spring in the valley. “You won’t find a bigger place in this part of the planet. People travel here for trading, advanced medical help―” she points towards one of the fenced villages that looks nothing like a hospital but apparently is, “―post-school education and entertainment.”</p><p>Jyn nods, gaze roaming all around the city as she’s trying to take it all in and also remember the exact route they’re taking so that she could easily find her way back to their airspeeder just like mama’s teaching her to.</p><p>They don’t rush on their walk, and roughly twenty minutes later reach the spring formed by the last in the cascade of waterfalls. A wooden walkway with balustrades is built with care over the spring’s very edge, leading towards the waterfall itself. Jyn squints up at mama with suspicion, not quite believing her eyes, to which Lyra lets go of her hand and nudges her forward gently between her shoulder blades, urging her to explore what lies ahead.</p><p>When she’s quarter across the walkway, the angle of sight reveals that there’s a cave behind the waterfall and the wooden path leads straight towards it. Excited by the reveal, Jyn spends the rest of the journey in a brisk jog to the entrance. Mama isn’t exactly hurrying to catch up with her, and while the desire to slip into the cave and explore is potent ― especially since it isn’t pitch-black and lit up by old-fashioned torches, wide enough to look inviting, and there are echoes of voices and children’s laughter coming from within the tunnel― she patiently waits until Lyra joins her and steps inside first.</p><p>Together they walk down the easy, curving descent, flickering flames dancing upon torches casting wondrous shadows upon the walls. The path ends in a spacious cavern that looks a bit like a theater, with seats carved into the rock mass to create an auditorium and the center of it divided into different sections by wooden framings. Inside most people are either dancing or fighting, Jyn isn’t quite sure, it looks a symbiosis between both. Children and teenagers and adults, they occupy different sectors of the arena. Some are clearly trying to learn new moves, some are locked into a sparring or a dance, and some are simply exercising.</p><p>Honestly, those basic acrobatic and callisthenic lessons she had attended back on Coruscant for a bit look rather bleak in comparison to all the practical magic happening inside of this cave.</p><p>Wide-eyed with awe, Jyn looks up at Lyra. “Please tell me I get to learn <em>that</em>,” she half-pleads, half-demands, pointing her index finger in the direction of a teenage girl whisking away from an attack of a bigger boy as swift as a wasp and sending him sprawled upon the rocks in a very spectacular move.</p><p>“I <em>did</em> promise you a great birthday gift,” mama goes for her <em>I’ll-neither-confirm-nor-deny </em>tone that always means utmost confirmation.</p><p>A radiant grin playing tricks on her lips and a squeak of pure happiness escaping her, Jyn latches onto mama’s thigh with the strongest loving hug she can muster.</p>
<hr/><p>Trips to Rhei’as three times a week become a routine. Sometimes it’s mama taking Jyn there, sometimes it’s papa, but more often than not it’s the two of them delivering her to the <em>me’jaii</em> instructors in the city and spending time together while Jyn is off training and having fun.</p><p>The art of <em>me’jaii</em> is ancient to the people inhabiting Lah’mu, a martial training dating back to pre-hyperspace era times on their old home planet. Once practiced solely by the male warriors of their nations, it rose to prominence during a bloody civil war when a daughter of a warrior, secretly trained in the art against tradition, taught it to other women as means to protect their village while the men were off to war. Archaic tradition giving way to practicality, the art had spread throughout population and became a common skill for most citizens to learn ― not compulsory, but highly regarded in the society and rarely skipped. In its full form it incorporates elements of a spectacular dance, practical acrobatics, hand-to-hand combat and fighting with weapons.</p><p>Like other kids, Jyn starts out learning the very basics, a far cry away from the most spectacular mastery of the art. But even so, it’s exciting and entertaining. It’s about building strength, agility, stamina, a slow journey of honing the body to be ready for challenging moves and techniques. There are many instructors in the dojo, but the place is ran by Śeilas I’thol and Catheir Angraite, the youngest masters of the art to date with older masters granting them this sacred honor. A more than proficient fighter himself, Catheir nevertheless focuses on guiding his students through basic physical activities: warm-up exercises, stretches, swimming, training of reaction. Śeilas, on the other hand, is all about actual <em>me’jaii</em> arts. And together they often take their students on the hikes around the village.</p><p>More often than not a day in Rhei’as spent with Śeilas and Catheir ends with Jyn napping at the way back home, energy done-in as she’s dozing off either on the passenger seat or in a parent’s lap. Regardless, it’s a joy and a special highlight of her life on Lah’mu. As time passes she notices that it’s easier to run longer distances, that she’s catching up to kids who started learning earlier, that she’s getting stronger and stronger. Something about these kinds of physical activities speaks to her, the training somehow feeling like the most natural thing ever.</p><p>Even when it’s challenging ― it’s full of joy.</p>
<hr/><p><em>Years later</em>, watching Chirrut Îmwe instruct Jedhan children in the art of <em>zama-shiwo</em>, Jyn thinks back to her first trip to Rhei’as and realizes a simple thing she somehow never quite caught on to before with abrupt clarity: from that point on, mama groomed her to become a warrior one day should the need for it ever arise. In ways both quite obvious and subtle Jyn’s childhood has built a foundation for her to become Saw Gerrera’s best soldier.</p><p>Lyra Erso undoubtedly hoped for the best, but she knew the galaxy, the Empire, and the fickle nature of odds all too well.</p><p>It hurts something fierce, this fact. In that moment it’s all too easy to imagine those same children she’s watching now grow up into the galaxy that older generation failed to make kinder for them, to see them on the frontlines of the same war that destroyed the Holy City and maligned their planet into an eternally burning, soon-to-become-uninhabitable living tomb.</p><p>The children laugh, though, and the sound carries up to her, effective in melting the ice of that gripping fear and sorrow for something that didn’t yet come to pass. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and wills those images away.</p><p>It’s impossible to be ready for a war, period. But, be as it may, they’ll stand a greater chance should that future dare to become their present.</p><p>Like her mother years before, unbeknownst to Jyn who then paid attention to the buzz of activity within the cavern only, she hopes for the best and smiles softly, for she knows the value of those lessons.</p><p>Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is to gently, subtly forge someone into a weapon and teach them to use that power for the greater good and only when it’s right.</p><p>It isn’t fair, not at all, but when the galaxy’s a battlefield ― you rise up for the occasion.</p>
<hr/><p>A month or so into her training a series of sparring matches between the instructors takes place. All the students gather to watch and learn from this friendly, yet fierce competition.</p><p>It feels like celebration of <em>me’jaii</em> art at its finest, a demonstration of skills without needless violence. It, however, soars up to a whole new level when it’s time for Śeilas and Catheir to face their opponents. Catheir is the first one to enter the arena. His opponent is one of the other honorary masters, a man whose greying hair and older age seem to make him an opponent more formidable rather than factors detrimental to his winning chances. It’s a drawn-out fight, a battle of tactics and physical excellence alike, and it looks <em>equal</em>. Catheir fights hard to win it, and he does so off a single tiny mistake his opponent makes. Having defeated his sparring partner, Catheir bows to acknowledge the master’s skill and the honorable fight, and extends a polite hand to help him up. An exchange of words follows between the two when they’re straightened up, a deeply-private conversation despite them being surrounded by awed students. The older master claps Catheir’s back a few times afterwards and gently shoves him out of the way by a nudge to his shoulder with a laugh.</p><p>“Patience, Essa,” Catheir says a little pointedly when he makes his way back to the seats and takes the place he’s been occupying by Jyn’s side before his fight.</p><p>She rolls her eyes at that, a tad annoyed. Patience is useful, all right, she agrees. But it’s so damn tedious sometimes. She wants to be better, she wants to be more, she wants to be like Catheir and Śeilas and other masters ― nothing short of possessing absolute grace and spectacular skill. “Is a key to winning, I know,” Jyn grumbles under her breath for good measure.</p><p>Moping, though, doesn’t really get her anywhere, she learned that much, and Jyn’s mind is quick to latch onto other things. Specifically, onto one suddenly very evident thing in the wake of Catheir’s impressive performance. “You’re really good,” she points out to him, her heels quietly tapping a rhyme of her favorite show’s opening song against the rocky surface of the seats. “It’s strange you don’t teach <em>me’jaii</em> yourself, then.”</p><p>“I am,” easily agrees Catheir, busy with loosening a hair band to free his unruly, sweat-matted light-ginger curls that contrast in an interesting way with his tawny skin. “But I’m not as good as she is,” he notes warmly, gaze locked upon Śeilas warming up for her fight now that the arena is clear. “I’ve defeated my instructor in a championship match when I was nineteen back home in the west, you ken.” A smile follows his words, peculiarly-accented different to pretty much everyone Jyn has heard speaking in this part of Lah’mu. “So I travel here next year to challenge the local masters and I lose to all of them, quite hard. And the battle I had no chance to win whatsoever is against Śeilas. It took me an elaborate master plan and three years of training to win my first proper match against Master Dei’Ver. And I still lost to him more often than not for the next four.”</p><p>Jyn crisscrosses her legs at the ankles upon the seat, leans back upon her outstretched arms ― still aching a little from thorough exercises earlier today in a good way ― and tilts her chin up as she looks at Catheir. “So, what’s the secret to winning?”</p><p>“The secret to winning, Essa,” tells her Catheir in an exaggeratedly-educational tone that never fails to make any of his students smile, “is to find someone who’s better than you, nurse your wounded pride, and humbly learn day by day.” A sudden seriousness of his features employed to make a point is softened quickly by a gentle, somewhat dreamy smile. “Also, in my case, the secret was to ask Śeilas for a date, nail that date, win her affection, and make her want to hang out with me and hence be willing to spend her precious time to train with me. Given that we’re happily married for eleven years now and I’m capable of winning a sparring against any master on this planet on a good day, I’d say my cunning plan has worked out spectacularly. A win-win on every front.”</p><p>“Sappy,” she declares and softly elbows Catheir’s waist.</p><p>“You’ll get it when time comes, lassie,” shoots back Catheir around a knowing chuckle.</p><p>When the sparring begins, Jyn sees what Catheir meant by praise of Śeilas’ skill. When Śeilas demonstrates certain moves to her students, she’s agile and enigmatic. But the art she’s weaving together with an older female master who ran the dojo before her is nothing short of magic. It’s a fight, but it looks much more like a fierce dance than any other Jyn has seen before in the torch-lit cave arena. It’s beauty and skill and something primal, an art you can only comprehend with awe and hope to ever reach mastery of. It’s swift and smart, agile and seamless, a rise and fall of initiative tides that is perfectly balanced. It’s a story told between two women, the roles of master and student completely blurred.</p><p>And all the while Catheir looks at Śeilas as if she’s the very center of the universe, the sun and moon and the meaning of everything.</p><p>Most of all from that day Jyn remembers the fight, that honorable victory that Śeilas claims by surpassing the teachings of her master by a very narrow margin, and the way watching the performance had made her feel ― inspired beyond measure to once be as skilled as either of the women. But the love in Catheir’s eyes lingers too, rooted in respect and admiration, not intimidated at all by someone who can best him in combat on what is likely a very regular basis.</p><p>She’ll dream of it for a while, a child who still infinitely fond of great stories about epic love. And then, when her life will plunge into darker tones of loss and war, she’ll bury that hope deep within herself and won’t dare revisiting it for a long, long time.</p>
<hr/><p><em>Years later</em>, it turns out that reflection of love is a lesson she learns, and it’s not for naught.</p><p>Coming down from a thrill of a, quite frankly, unexpected victory over Chirrut Îmwe on Lira San, blood singing with triumphant delight and fighting exertion alike, she feels the warm, electric weight of someone’s gaze, a caress of attention both soft and greedy and sending pleasant sparks into her blood. She turns around and looks up towards the rope bridges weaved over the theater turned a training arena and―</p><p>―there, to both her surprise and no surprise at all, that gaze belongs to a pair of too distant now for her liking but very familiar dark-brown eyes. The eyes that, oftentimes haunted by cold memories and weight of war and its all too many ghosts, are now the kindling fire of something she’d seen once before and never quite realized the gravity and sheer magnitude and all undercurrents of. Something that once she classified as only love, plain and simple, but in which now she sees a deeper meaning, knows deep in her bones and within every fiber of her heart that love can be deconstructed to surprise and no surprise at all, to a bewildered kind of awe, to passion of raw attraction and to unquestionable devotion, to something soft and sharp, fierce and gentle, potent and skittish and undoubtedly <em>true</em>.</p><p>It’s not only Cassian’s gaze that’s conquered by emotion, no. He’s smiling ― a kind of a smile she caught glimpses before, wide and free and warm and as genuine as a smile can possibly be ― but unlike all other times when he hurried up to downplay it or hide it altogether, spooked by her seeing him like this as if he’s nothing short of a tiny tooka spotted stealing a treat from a market stall, he holds her gaze and somehow smiles even <em>more</em>. There’s trust and comfort to it of a near-absolute degree and just a breath of shyness that colors it with comfort for her in return. It doesn’t last for too long, no. He’s careful still and the moment passes, settles back to something less intense and more subdued. It’s like hope ― a bright and free flare of it that shines in the heat of a moment, but then, laden by reality and old ghosts, diminuendoes back into an ember.</p><p>And that change carries with it both relief and a hint of disappointment. This time a bit more disappointment than relief. Because then and there Jyn realizes for the first time with a special kind of clarity that, damn her many fears and doubts, there’s no way a person who looks at her like this doesn’t want her in their life and will suddenly stop wanting her to be in their life if she dares to issue a challenge to their relationship. They can work everything out, there’s trust and respect and a certain transparency between them that all are incredible. There’s foundation for taking a risk ― near everything they have was built upon taking risks and seeing how a challenge or a dare will turn out. And maybe, just maybe, if she musters up the courage to <em>ask</em>, they can build something more. Something she’s been wanting for some time now ― something she can live without, but something that can continue this harmonic symphony between them and make the many crescendos of it even better, brighter, hotter.</p><p>If only she’d ask.</p>
<hr/><p>(The next day, on a beach lit up by the brightest colors of a radiant dusk, she finds that courage. Cassian Andor meets her halfway.)</p>
<hr/><p><em>Years later</em>, as her relationship with patience goes on, one of those everlasting personal battles she’ll have to tackle more often than not, a hurdle to overcome to be better and stronger, she finds herself in a mentor role after Scarif. Oddly enough it’s a role that doesn’t feel as unnatural as she always thought it would be, but it’s a challenge to guide others through training and help them face perhaps the biggest challenge of their lives ― subdue the hearts that yearn for fighting and take time to get ready for those fights.</p><p>She isn’t as involved in training newer recruits now like she was in the beginning of her stay with the Alliance ― no, a growing pile of Intelligence missions now that Cassian is back in the field has severely limited that time as High Command prefers her to work mostly with improving an already impressive level of warfare skills for more seasoned units if schedules allow for it ― but it happens from time to time.</p><p>Today’s challenge is not hand-to-hand or weapon combat (damn a simple data exchange mission going bad thanks to a contact’s greed that resulted in a rather spectacular brawl with thugs aboard and upon a hover-train and a subsequent jump from a said train upon the roofs that deeply bruised the muscles of her right thigh <em>again</em>), but an elaborate battlefield holo-simulation in the<em> Home One’s</em> training arena.</p><p>Objectively speaking, none of the recruits are nowhere near close to the level of Jyn ever considering sending them to a real-life battlefield. They’re green, this lot, the batch of files on them she gives a cursory glance stating that they’re one of the latest massive recruitment waves the Alliance had a privilege of acquiring after the war began in earnest with the battle of Scarif and destruction of Alderaan and the Death Star’s demise, with most of then having little to no practice in required fighting skills.</p><p>One person stands out more than others from the two sessions Jyn hosts with them, his disappointment rooted in quiet, yet viscerally potent anger directed inward rather than manifesting itself in natural frustration or a more common case of self-pity most other recruits are broadcasting. Those other emotions are easier to deal with, a feat of mentoring their Alliance handler should be able to nail with no trouble, but this particular case captures her attention and holds it tight.</p><p>She spends the dinner the first night after training deep in thought, Cassian’s leg warm against hers as he courteously takes the brunt of socializing with Bodhi upon himself for a rare change and grants her the space she needs for mulling this over without asking any questions. It’s tricky and awkward and arcane, offering advice when it doesn’t concern the right way to hold a blaster or listing all the ways to beat the living spirit out of your opponent. It’s been easier with Bodhi cause he’s―<em>Bodhi</em>, someone she can call a friend without reservations. But even then she found herself balancing precariously around her words, not being sure that what seems obvious to her would actually help him. She hasn’t decided on whether or not to act by the time the second training session begins, but by its end and what is the tenth failed attempt of the day and the twentieth in two days the recruit’s spirits seem to be volatile in a way that casts a familiar too-deep shadow over him.</p><p>And so, a child soldier once struggling with anger and frustration of war studies directed both inward and towards her mentor, she damns her reservations deep into a sarlacc pit.</p><p>“Dismissed,” Jyn announces from her position at the simulation console from a pedestal overseeing the arena when the last simulation runs its course and the sound effects of blaster fire and bombs die out. “Recruit Falme, and you I ask to stay,” she adds, resulting in the said tall blonde man in his mid-twenties freeze in place and drop his disappointed scowl of self-anger in utter shock. Other recruits exchange bewildered glances, but leave for the dressing rooms without as much of a word spoken in Jyn’s presence.</p><p>“Sergeant,” acknowledges Ionell Falme with a salute, voice careful and puzzled, and looks up to Jyn.</p><p>She sizes him up with sharp eyes, satisfied by what she’s seeing. His battlefield-orientation skills may not be up to scratch, but his discipline appears to be an unquestionable matter. There certainly is hope for him to become an even more valuable member of the Rebel Alliance than he already is. “Come up here,” she says in a neutral tone, takes a few steps back, and leans against the wall.</p><p>There are moments to be intimidating and stand tall, but that is not what Recruit Falme needs at this moment. He’s got plenty of respect for the chain of command, for rules, and he’s more than used to authority from his past and received education. No, the tactic must be different.</p><p>He’s quick to climb the steps that lead up to the pedestal and stops at the very edge of it, hands clasped behind his back and shoulders dropping a little, an epitome of humility one does not often see in a man of his stature and build and objectively very conventionally-attractive looks for a Human male.</p><p>“Tell me,” Jyn begins conversationally, eyes taking the empty, spacious arena from the high point instead of being laser-focused on Falme’s face, “what do you think you’re lacking the most to beat this challenge?”</p><p>To his credit, he doesn’t rush to provide an answer. Eyebrows drawn, he considers his options carefully to reply at last, “A skill to make the right choice in the chaos. I often fail to prioritize correctly whether or not I should come to aid to a soldier or stay in safety. And I am objectively not good in reading my surroundings right or reacting to changes quick enough.”</p><p>She smiles a little at the familiarity of those claims. She once thought too that being smart like this would bring her closer to her goals. Turns out ― it isn’t quite as easy.</p><p>(Damn, Saw and Catheir and Śeilas would’ve been so smug should they have seen her now.)</p><p>“Those are all valid points, but they’re a wrong answer. The key, Ionell, is patience. In your case it’s patience for your own natural shortcomings.”</p><p>Dig deep towards a root cause of a problem, add a little spark, and flame goes off near-immediately. “I <em>need</em> to be better than this,” asserts Ionell Falme, voice quiet yet tinted with fierceness of a man who has a lot to prove, a lot to <em>atone</em> for. “A good medic is invaluable on the battlefield. Those men and women deserve a better chance to survive through the mayhem. I have the skill for saving lives. I have stayed blind towards the true nature of the Empire for too long. It’s my duty to contribute.”</p><p>Jyn shifts, leaning against the wall with one shoulder to angle her body to face the medic, and meets his eyes. “Being angry at yourself for this doesn’t bring you any closer to your goal. It winds you up and pushes you farther away from it. You’re too deep in your head, too focused on your failures to do a proper service to the challenge. Your over-eagerness makes you blind in moments when you should see clearly. And the longer this will go on, the more time you’ll try and keep on failing.”</p><p>“But some of those soldiers <em>won’t</em> have the time.”</p><p>She arches a thought-provocative eyebrow. “You had the time to learn before you first operated on a living being, didn’t you? Let’s say you, a green student straight out of school, are facing an operating table with a person who needs a complex emergency surgery. There’s no one else around to interfere, at all. You may have learned the basics of anatomy, you may already have held a laser-scalpel in your hands and they were steady. But you have neither knowledge nor skill for the task ahead of you. Your patient dies, no matter if you try to help or do nothing. Is it your fault?”</p><p>Ionell’s expression drops, an epitome of both anguish and painful realization. Jyn quirks her mouth into a small sympathetic smile. “Sometimes in life you’re helpless despite your desire to be otherwise. And the only way out of that cage is to take a step after a step and climb a tree of skill, however long it takes you. For without that you do more harm than good.” She smiles again, this time to memories of lessons from distant past that stuck with her, lessons of both failures and triumphs that color that smile with a bit of irony and pride alike. “This comes easy to me, you see. Fighting is perhaps the thing I feel the most in my element at. And even so it took me years upon years to master most of what I know. With natural inclination towards the many subjects of warfare and starting out with some of them as early as at mere five years old. You’ll get there, Falme. You have the dedication, the fire to save lives that’ll drive you there. But it will be faster if you give yourself time. If you’re as patient with this as you’ve been studying your primary life craft.”</p><p>Her advice makes sense, she can see it in the way the worst of that anger and anguish in his features softens. He’s troubled still, as any person who wants to do some good with powerful intensity here and now, and will be for months to come as he’ll struggle with learning to be good enough for joining the field, but he seems to have made the first baby step towards judging his abilities and his place in this war more objectively. Ionell Falme draws a deep breath, releases it, and dares to let his gaze meets Jyn’s halfway. “So the stories are true. You indeed have a knack for motivational speeches, Sergeant,” he says around a shaky, a tad shamed smile.</p><p>Jyn rolls her eyes. “Don’t remind me and then we’re even. Now,” she schools her features back to a commander’s seriousness that she’d so often seen Saw employ against his Partisans, “how about I point out every exact moment where you’ve went wrong?”</p><p>“I believe I’m your humble servant,” responds Ionell Falme and takes a step towards the console and many justified blows to his ego that will spring up to existence in a holographic form.</p>
<hr/><p>(Five months later Ionell Falme is assigned to a Partisan group led by Kes Dameron. He makes it through the war despite being in near-constant thick of the fight, watches the second Death Star burn over Endor, and eventually writes a memoir detailing his experiences with the war and the Empire.</p><p>The memoir contains a short preface:</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes the best thing you can do is waiting for it. <strong>;-)</strong></p><p> </p><p>It takes his old-fashioned, signed physical copy a bit of time to reach its galaxy-hopping, allergic to one-place-staying addressee, and barely any time at all to come back to him with a written complaint beneath those printed words.</p><p>“<em>I see what you did there, you smug bastard</em>,” it says, and the book makes one more intergalactic trip before it takes its rightful place on a book-filled shelf by the bed of Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor aboard of their ship.)</p>
<hr/><p><em>Years later</em>, a variety of special lessons in patience in a form hot and sweet weaves into Jyn’s life and makes it infinitely better.</p><p>A form of patience is listening to her instincts instead of succumbing to rush of desire and paving way to sexual intimacy with Cassian at a time when it feels like a logical evolution of their relationship rather than a hurried affair wrought with doubts, at a time when their trust in each other and respect for each other is absolute. A form of patience is a prolonged story in touches and kisses and taking time to explore before they get closer to a more sexual form of intimacy, a fascination with discovering a number of ways to make Cassian smile and laugh, sigh and quietly moan and hold back sounds of pleasure on instinct long-ingrained by years of concealing vulnerabilities, close his eyes when something feels overwhelming in the nicest of ways or let joy, bewilderment, a bit of honest shock reign over his expression. A form of patience is to let Cassian do the same to her, and even trickier example of it is either letting him to keep her on the very edge of pleasure without release for quite a while or finding out just how much of that bliss she can possibly take.</p><p>And along the way she has to be brave and figure out a complex equation of harmony between them, for like patience itself this side of a relationship requires utmost care and a path of trials and errors.</p><p>A few month old only, this intimate thing between them feels odd in a welcome way, somehow both familiar and new, a thrill of those long-awaited first times remaining while it loses that nerve-wrecking edge of skittish worries along with a mortifying ordeal of awkwardness. Satiation comes and goes, only to come back with renewed fervor.</p><p>It doesn’t surprise Jyn that Cassian is matching her yearning for sex. It only makes sense, after all, if this does feel as great for him as it does for her, if he’s as hungry for feeling so good with another person after years of missing out on this, years of not knowing how amazing this can be with a partner who’s right for you in every way.</p><p>What does make her wonder with increasing frequency, though, is the way he goes about it.</p><p>Cassian and his free time form a precarious equation; an equation as old as his rebel life in which duty and his habits play a rather paramount role. For as much as he likes spending time with Jyn in conversations or watching something together, there’s always a certain routine to his life, a specific ratio of time he dedicates to rebellion-related tasks, to things like fixing droids or fiddling with tech or simply coding for practice, and to interacting with others. With Jyn weaving herself into his life she becomes a part of his routine more often than not. They find a way to make this work without making either of them feel a real detriment to their personal comfort zones, a symbiosis between quiet company and being entrenched into their own business forms seamlessly.</p><p>It is, however, undeniable that sex introduces a change into this routine. For ever since they’ve turned the page and embarked on this new journey of their life, it’s crystal clear that Cassian predominantly chooses to stay in bed for longer if their schedules allow for it instead of a perfectly pleasurable and efficient round of sex to balance out his old comfort routines with this new addition to his life. It’s flattering, his attention and caring. Flattering and exciting, full of joy and pleasure. It’s somehow better than the way Jyn imagined this would be, so of course she cherishes it all.</p><p>And yet, she can’t help but feel that he’s being too selfless with his affection and that she’s being too selfish by accepting it just like this, no gentle question asked.</p><p>It takes a bit of time for this worry to form and crystallize into something coherent at the back of her mind, to grow too loud and prominent for it to be easily compartmentalized or dismissed altogether. Along with that it’s a precarious kind of a conversation too, something that reminds her of every important choice they both had to make in their relationship. It won’t necessarily bring a change along with it, but it is a challenge, a potential point of soft contention. Jyn mulls it over with great care, aiming to navigate the current of this conversation without putting a damper into this precious thing between them.</p><p>The thing is, the longer she thinks about it, the clearer she realizes that it won’t become any easier the longer she stalls. In some cases her patience and perhaps a not so small about of wary fear guided her towards a better solution and a more suitable timing for a challenge or upgrade in their relationship, but the longer she puts this conversation off this time ― the longer this threatens to be dragged out in an unbalanced way. Cassian won’t raise this question, detrimentally all too rooted in his own views of himself and the ways others see him and the ways he should serve the others unless they’re questioned hard from the outside ― of that she is sure.</p><p>And so, one day, after a difficult mission with a week of little to no rest and more danger and stress they’ve both faced in a while, after coming back to the <em>Home One</em> and debrief with Intelligence, they’re blessedly alone at last, naked in bed, and Cassian is weaving an unhurried, languid, and profoundly attentive story of affection in touches and kisses all over her body, Jyn decides that enough is enough.</p><p>A specific string of her patience frayed, she decides to gently head-butt the problem and see if it won’t floor her newfound wonderful reality with a particularly nasty case of bursting stars.</p><p>Easier imagined than done, though. He’s <em>distracting</em> without even knowing it, an idle caress of his fingers against her ribs unexpectedly delving higher to toy with her nipple and spicing up a more innocent exploration he’d spent engaged in for the last few minutes, and instead of raising herself up on her elbows and trying to start a moderately-serious conversation, Jyn arches her body towards his touch and throws her head back, the carefully-thought out words swept clear off her tongue in favor of a content, slightly heated sigh for it takes her desire up a notch even higher.</p><p>Cassian hums under his breath, highly appreciative of such reaction, and shifts that fiery touch away <em>again</em> to the soft skin of her inner upper arm. Jyn closes her eyes, draws in a deep breath. All right, it’s now or never, period. Should he actually stop teasing soon and get to the most heated intimacy it might turn rather unsurmountable to interrupt that sweet, prolonged moment of nearing bliss with serious conversations.</p><p>“Tell me, are you planning to drag this out long past afternoon?” she issues a temperate challenge and meets Cassian’s eyes, deliberate in keeping her voice soft. It’s important he doesn’t see this as a complaint or a tease, that it registers as something important, but not devastating or too whimsical.</p><p>Since, well, he’s Cassian (enunciated quietly in her mind in Kay’s eternally vexed and highly judgmental tone, the droid’s voice is damn contagious and all too memorable), his first instinct is to think he had overstepped. And while that is infinitely better than a lover who ignores feedback, it is vexing in its own way. Jyn feels him freeze next to her, sees how that unguarded wonderful appreciative joy in his expression bleeds into a cold shock of guilt and worry. “Do you want me to stop?” he asks with seriousness that is laden by revulsion directed inward.</p><p>Before his mind can wander off to the loathsome territory of seriously messed-up reflections rooted mostly in his deepest fears, Jyn props herself up on one elbow to nearly mirror Cassian’s own position in bed, seeks out the warmth of his body with hers until they’re close again with their legs entwined, tips his chin up with her thumb for the right angle, and leans in for a kiss. It’s soft and affectionate more than it’s passionate. There’ll be more than enough time for that if this conversation between them plays out right, but for now she makes a point of being more than eager in a gentle way, to shine a bit of light upon the darkness she put into Cassian’s head by her desire to ensure they’re on equal ground in this.</p><p>To her relief it works: while he didn’t catch up with her as soon as she would like him to and he’s more cautious when he responds to the kiss than he’s been in a while, perhaps ever since their very first kisses, it’s easy to tell that tension in both his body and mind unwinds, that cold fear slowly melting away the longer they enjoy this quiet moment of intimacy.</p><p>When Jyn breaks the kiss, she chooses to gently bump her nose against his and cards her fingers through his hair, huffing a little against his cheek. “When I’m naked like this next to you, <em>genius</em>,” she murmurs with a special emphasis on sarcasm and leans away a little to ensure Cassian is seeing her very clearly and she can keep track of how he reacts to her words, “I never want you to stop altogether. You never gave me any reason to ever think of that. Sometimes, though, I do want us to do things a little differently.”</p><p>A small frown creeps back between Cassian’s eyebrows, a telltale sign his brain is running through way too many options of what that means and what he should do. He opens his mouth slightly, and Jyn is quick to bring her index finger to his lips. “I’ll have neither apologies nor your assumptions about what I want or need today, Cassian,” she tells him firmly, smiles to him gently, and moves her finger away to caress the sharp line of his cheekbone and prickly stubble running by its side with the backs of her fingertips. “What I want you to know, though, is that you don’t have to spend this much time on foreplay every time we have sex. I appreciate it, I truly do. I love how it feels, this slow gradual change from simple touch to a more erotic one and the way you shift between them teasingly. It’s fun, it means a lot, it’s thoughtful and caring of you.” Jyn licks her lips, shifts her caress up to Cassian’s temple to brush back the unruly locks scattered upon his forehead, buries her fingers into his hair. “But, really, there’s no need to try this hard almost every single time. I love it too when sex is different between us, when we get down to business quicker. You know I’m quite swift to be ready for you when we’re together. Some of that is me being into sex with you in general, most of it is you learning very quickly what’s very good for me. It works.” She sighs a little this time, biting the inside of her cheek, trying to find the right words to finish her thought. Where they have streamed before like a timid mountain river, sure and steady, now they stutter, betraying her and the grace of the moment.</p><p>Despite his latest plunge into the greedy, wintry embrace of his fears, this time Cassian understands exactly what she’s trying to convey. His lips quirking up into a smile both affectionate and bashful, he catches Jyn’s hand, brings it down between them, and presses a reverent kiss to her knuckles. Like it always is, they manage to connect again, to seek out harmony in spite of any misstep.</p><p>“I’m not doing this because it’s a chore or anything, or because I absolutely have to,” he reveals, the echo of his words and breath caressing her scarred skin. A small frown etches itself over the bridge of his nose for a split instant to smooth out as he rolls his eyes a little. “I mean, yeah, I got to be cognizant of the meaning of foreplay to be a good lover for you, but the reason I sometimes spend this much time on it is solely because I love spending time on it.”</p><p>Kissing her knuckles again, Cassian straightens out his arm and rests his head upon it, stretching out in bed in a relaxed reclining position on his side. He lets go of Jyn’s hand only to drape his arm over her side and cradle her to him when she follows his example and rests her head upon the pillow, their faces both close to each other and far enough to keep one another comfortably in sight.</p><p>“When I’m with you like this,” Cassian continues the moment they’re settled, his expression now thoughtful yet blessedly peaceful, his fingertips drawing an elaborate series of doodles across the expanse of Jyn’s back with reverence that burrows deep into her heart and emanates gentle heat of belonging and idle, soft, simple pleasure from basic contact, “everything that’s outside of this or any other door, all this mess we’re in, it fades away.” He bends his half-trapped arm at the elbow, brings his hand up to scratch his fingertips against his head in a slightly self-conscious gesture. Combined with a light, bashful half-smile, that gesture steals years of hardship away from his features and body language, turns a soldier, a spy, a killer into a man with light of hope and affection in his eyes, into a friend, into an honest and near-carefree lover. “Most of what usually runs through my head quietens down too, goes silent even. For a while you can be absolutely everything to me. It’s fascinating to pay this much attention to you, to discover you over and over again, to see and feel how you react to different things. It’s a gift. This goes a long way to ease stress. More so than an orgasm, to be honest. That’s nice and all, but―”</p><p>Jyn grins knowingly, scratches her nails lightly against the side of Cassian’s ribs. “―too short-lived in comparison with the rest, even if it’s way more intense,” she finishes the sentence for him.  </p><p>He nods, biting his bottom lip at the gently-sharp sensation, and even arches a little into it. “Mhm,” Cassian hums approvingly. “Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy it a great deal when we’re kind of naughty and steal a bit of sexy times in the morning before a meeting, or when we’re efficient about orgasms in the shower, or when we’re in a mood for something different than taking our time like this. However, I do find everything―” he contemplates for a moment, gaze a little distant, then focuses on Jyn’s eyes again, “―<em>brighter</em>, I suppose, when you are very patient with me in every way, whether it’s me teasing you or you teasing me. This buildup, a bit of teasing denial thrown in there for good measure, it makes the culmination a bit more special, adds a certain sharpness to it. It’s just a different facet of sex, not better or worse by any means. I just usually prefer this when we have the time for it on our hands,” Cassian concludes.</p><p>His hand wanders down Jyn’s back now, the idle nature of his touch growing fierier when his palm caresses the small of her back, shifts lower and lower still. He waits a little, eyes intent on hers, and only after she tips her chin amiably lets his fingertips brush against her folds. The sensation of finding that she’s still wet and ready for him despite them spending all this time simply talking makes his eyes go round and his lips part in joyous daze that never seems to get old for him. “This thing with patience in sex feels―” he adds in a slightly rougher voice now, his tongue darting to wet his lips, “the same to you, is it not?”</p><p>Always so careful not to overstep a boundary, he manages to sound <em>politely</em> unsure about that even when his fingers still touch her so intimately. So fond and so grateful, Jyn slowly guides her hand from his upper ribs all the way down to his hip in a slow, gentle caress, and continues on lower and aside to his thigh, fingertips light and a bit idle, undemanding still when she strokes the skin close to a now-faint, longish scar that he too acquired because of Scarif. And even though she feels the way long cords of muscles in his leg involuntarily tense up, reacting to her touch in that familiar manner of welcoming such affection rather than growing taut with nerves and stress of enduring a touch he doesn’t want, none of that really shows on his face. His eyes are still searching hers, hungry for an answer and giving her all the time in the galaxy to come up with it, and his expression is―</p><p>―not neutral, and not quite apprehensive. No, it’s caring and patient, an embodiment of ardor and respect alike.</p><p>Oh, the many contradictory facets of Cassian Andor. Who could have thought there can be such an abundance of discoveries and surprises hiding behind that impassive mask of utter neutrality she’d glimpsed when she looked at him for the very first time?</p><p>It’s so perfect that it just begs for a tease, for wrecking that composure in a wicked way that will make them both rather wound up and giddy.  With a naughty smirk and an arch of her eyebrow, Jyn inquires in a voice too innocent for the occasion, “Should I leave the deductive thinking to you, laserbrain, or―” she idly traces her hand back up his hip, sneaks it between them to lightly scratch the very edges of her fingernails along the taut, defined line of his abdominal muscles, and stills the tips of her fingers a breath away from touching him where he must crave it the most judging by the way his breath hitches in his chest and she feels his thighs shiver and tense up and jerk little in a clearly aborted motion to roll his hips just so to seek out her caress. Jyn fails to contain her laughter, happy and proud and just a little sinuous in a kind way of a woman being amazed by the effect she has on her lover, and finishes the thought that is more jovial than teasing thanks to a giggle which sneaks its way into it, “―do you need some more pointers to solve this mystery?”</p><p>The answer she gets comes in a form of two fingers dipping at long-awaited last into the wet, welcoming heat of her body and a kiss full of raw passion. All things considered, it’s the exact answer Jyn wanted for it. She lifts her leg, hitches her thigh over Cassian’s hip to slot her body as close as she can like this to his, to give his hand more space for maneuvering, to feel his length brush against her belly when she rolls her hips in a short wavy motions in tune with every wonderful thrust of his fingers inside her, and meets the intense fervor of his passion with a heated frenzy of her own in a string of kisses.</p><p>When they part to take a breath, Cassian leans his forehead against Jyn’s. “What do you want from me now?” he whispers, a little breathless after kisses so spectacular and intense and the right side of downright sensuous, and stills his fingers inside her in order to be not too distracting with seeking out her pleasure at this particular moment.</p><p>How convenient it is that while they were kissing she found a particularly fascinating solution. She could easily just let him get her off like this, true, but she knows what both of them fantasize about the most right now and it just feels right to honor it. Time, they have all the time they want today for it, and she has to trust Cassian on this. “How about I’ll let you continue with taking your time, while I too return the favor so that no one is being neglected,” Jyn suggests and props herself up on her elbow again. “And in reward―” she enunciates in a husky voice, brings her mouth close to Cassian’s ear, and whispers her wish to him in a secret-like, seductive manner.</p><p>Their bodies are so close she feels a very potent shiver running through him, the way his breath catches in reaction to her desire, the way he twitches against her belly in an involuntary rush of desire that goes straight to his groin. Undoubtedly he remembers that <em>particular</em> occasion, an adrenaline-fueled rush of urgent passion, intense and swift and balancing on the right, perfect side of <em>rough</em>. And so Jyn chuckles in triumph, knowing full well that she’d just bargained a perfect deal.</p><p>Cassian does not disappoint her. He rises up too, chases her mouth for another deep, heated kiss that makes her toes curl. Together with just a perfect thrust of his fingers inside her, her body is all electric with pleasure, and she’s not even close to it reaching its peak.</p><p>At times it feels unreal how good this new life of hers has gotten, this safe haven of peace and the kindest of flames they’ve managed to build together despite all the pain and reservations and scars of the past in between the violent tides of the war they’re both still fighting.</p><p>“An agreement of contrasts that appeases us both?” he murmurs against her lips afterwards. “You’ve got this.”</p><p>A promise made by Cassian is a sacred thing. So, yes, she really <em>does</em>.</p>
<hr/><p>The first time Jyn sees a starship rush towards their homestead on the horizon, it’s a gift and harbinger of happiness.</p><p>The crops have grown higher than her for the first time in near-three seasons they have spent here, so much so that she can run within the dense fields and easily imagine she’s the fierce and brave Ellara Kolan, the hero of the lengthy book series she can’t stop devouring and re-reads again, the first dragon-whisperer in centuries, separated from friends and allies and forced to cross a deadly ancient forest to save her beloved, her dragon queen and his dragon king from the enemy’s grasp.</p><p>A morning is sunlit today on Lah’mu, the black sand of the beach glistening softly. Above the long leaves of the crops oceanic birds sing their lively songs. Their melodic chirping weaves into the rustling of fresh ocean breeze that echoes in the field. It’s a peaceful day, and Jyn has to try harder to imagine the dangers that await Ellara on her way, the ominous ancient magic of a forest wronged too many times and grown hostile to anyone who dares to set foot on its sacred grounds.</p><p>When Jyn first hears a distant sound of a starship engine, entrenched into her imagination, her first instinct is to assume this is exactly how the forest’s sentinel would sound as it makes its heavy way amongst the many narrow passageways towards the intruder, and she’s <em>excited</em>. Like Ellara meeting the deadly sentinel and proving to it and the forest that she means it no harm, she wishes she had a chance to do the same and has no doubts that she would have succeeded. When you’re smart and brave and kind ― even the ancient wounds of mistrust can heal.</p><p>Then, of course, the sound shifts closer and grows more distinct, and Jyn is wrenched out of her daydreaming fantasy with an unpleasant feeling of ice crystallizing deep in her gut. No, it’s not the sound made by creaking of rocks against the rocks as the earth elemental sentinel makes it through the forest, it really is the unmistakable roar of a spaceship flying low above the ocean.</p><p>It could be the starship she’s waiting for. But, like mama warned her, it can also be a starship that carries Imperial soldiers within its belly.</p><p>Jyn may be a child and a bit of a naughty trickster, but she has learned well enough when she must act like an adult. She turns around, the story forgotten, and runs through the field towards the homestead. She stops only once, at the edge of the field from where she could still be hidden yet get a good look at the starship heading for the beach, and breathes out with relief.</p><p>It is the familiar, beat-up small transport freighter with most of its decorative paint either fading in color of completely peeled off that carried mama offworld two weeks ago. It’s the ship undoubtedly piloted by Saw and the ship that carries Lyra Erso back home.</p><p>Her fears forgotten, Jyn rushes back into the fields to pick up her stuffed toy lizard she had hidden beneath a tiny boulder to account for her having to navigate the dense growth alone just like Ellara did when her own lizard-friend was bravely scouting the territory away from her, and then heads straight towards the ship that is touching down at the edge of the beach a very safe distance away from fertile fields and Galen Erso’s farming achievements.</p><p>The ship’s ramp is engaged, the door whooshes open, and Lyra Erso walks down from it to the beach and patiently waits until her daughter catches up and jumps into her open arms, quick to twine herself the best she can around mama and not disturb the rucksack she carries behind her back too much.</p><p>Well, the rucksack certainly seems more stuffed with things than it was when Lyra left. So, maybe, a worry that gnawed at Jyn for a while now was for naught after all?</p><p>“I’ve ran for home, just like instructed,” Jyn proudly rapid-fires her report. “And then I stopped by the edge, still hidden, and I’ve checked it was you and Uncle Saw.”</p><p>“I haven’t doubted you for a second, love,” affirms Lyra and plants a quick, playful kiss to Jyn’s forehead. “I missed you, young bandit,” she says as Jyn climbs back down and passes her toy lizard to mama.</p><p>“Me too.” Jyn is earnest in that admission, but for now there’s a slightly more important mission on her agenda. Her worry may be eased, but it’s not erased. It’s the only the third time Saw touched down on Lah’mu in her memory, and last time he had completely forewent stopping by the house and only just greeted Jyn and Galen before he took Lyra away with him.</p><p>No, that won’t do at all.</p><p>Halfway up the ramp, Jyn hears mama’s steps behind her and whirls around quickly. “No, you stay here,” she instructs as she tilts her head back, schools her best strict, stalwart expression, and dares to meet Lyra’s eyes while she’s at it.</p><p>She’s certain that radiant smiles and happy chuckles and laugh lines crinkling people’s eyes aren’t the reaction her current attitude is supposed to warrant ― ugh, come on, where is she messing it up? when will she grow up at last and be taken seriously when it’s important? ― but it suits mama and floods her own heart with joy, so she’ll take it.</p><p>“Bossy, aren’t you?” Lyra teases her, one eyebrow arching mischievously, and chuckles again. “All right then, go on. Maybe Saw does need a silver-tongued tyke like you challenging him a little. And I’ll―” she demonstratively turns around and sits down upon the ship’s ramp, “―will just wait here until you conclude your important business with him.”</p><p>Huh. So maybe her act did work. Nice.</p><p>For all Saw’s gruff demeanor and soldiery looks, there’s nothing in the ship to indicate that he’s a rebel fighter, not a weapon in sight. Jyn knows full well that their homestead has several nooks where mama keeps weaponry, that she never leaves the house without a blaster and a knife and always manages to conceal them, and so she doesn’t doubt the fact that this ship is probably nothing short of an arsenal.</p><p>She wonders if Saw pretends it’s not an arsenal on the off-chance an Imperial patrol will stop him or if he’s always doing it for her and Galen’s sake.</p><p>The old soldier himself is in the cockpit, looking ready to start departing procedures if it wasn’t for Lyra on the ramp and Jyn daring to lurk into his ship. “Hi, Saw,” she tells him, working hard to keep her voice serious and less childish than it usually is as she climbs into the empty co-pilot’s seat.</p><p>“Young bandit,” he acknowledges, the corner of his mouth quirking a little into a parody of a half-smile. This nickname stuck between Jyn and Lyra, but it originated from Saw during that week of travel from Coruscant to Lah’mu, and it seems to amuse him to at least some extent. “Knew it was only a matter of time before you’ll sneak in here. You do take after your mother, and then some.”</p><p>She had snuck in here with a very specific purpose ― to appease that splinter of anxiety that’s been quietly, occasionally ailing her good moods ever since mama left for this so-called <em>supply</em> trip with Saw. It’s not that she’s not brave ― one has to be brave to ask a question she’s been meaning to demand answers for and to just walk up like that to a man of Saw Gerrera’s aura and commanding demeanor ― but she’s not quite ready yet to tackle that worry.</p><p>Instead, Jyn studies Saw Gerrera just as he studies her. Whereas mama and papa didn’t really change much, in Jyn’s opinion, Saw had gotten older in these near-three years, older in a way that’s painfully obvious. There’s a new faint web of scars on his right cheek that reminds her of a map of veins, the wrinkles on his forehead have gotten deeper. There’s more silver in his beard than before, and the short curly hair he’s sporting now is more gray than black. But, mostly, there’s something in his eyes that makes Jyn feel an unpleasant pang of coldness in her heart. Beneath all that hard fierceness in them there was always something tired and sad in their dark depth, just a hint she would spot every now and then before he somehow wiped it off, but now that weariness has deepened.</p><p>She’s still almost painfully-young to be catching these things and Lah’mu is a distant cradle of peace, a place near-idyllic, one in tune with nature, and safe from most hardship of the galaxy, but she can see many sad truths in fragments of her parents talking to each other, in the HoloNet broadcasts and newsreels and rare stories about rebels that escape Imperial propaganda machine, in stories about history and politics and rights and wrongs that mama’s telling her ever so frequently.</p><p>“The Empire’s getting worse, isn’t it?” Jyn asks and looks Saw straight in the eyes.</p><p>For a moment the old warrior looks <em>astonished</em> by her being so blunt. But he isn’t a warrior for naught, so he’s quick to regain his composure and look at Jyn.</p><p>(Look at her the way he looks at every good soldier he meets on his way and fights side by side with ― like she’s an adult, needs no pampering, and is worthy of knowing all the hard truths and ugly sides of life so that she could arm herself with it. She’ll get it soon enough. But not quite yet.)</p><p>“It is,” Saw admits. Just like that, short and simple and just a tad pissed off at the Empire around the edges of two short words.</p><p>All right, so the moment has arrived at last. Jyn takes a deep breath, curls her little hands into fists, tilts her chin up, and demands, “Are you going to take my mother to fight with you?”</p><p>“No, young bandit.”</p><p>This―isn’t quite what she expected. “No?” Jyn clarifies in a quieter tone, ready to fight Saw Gerrera to keep her mother home with her and finding that she had completely misread the battle.</p><p>Saw smiles to her. It’s still an expression subdued and rather―small, more a promise of a smile than a smile itself, but it’s real. “It’s not an easy fight. We’re outnumbered, outgunned. I need anyone who can fight. Your mother doesn’t want to fight with me, though. And so I am not taking her to join my fight. That I can promise you. It is not my choice to make.”</p><p>“But why?” she wonders more to herself this time, both appeased and frustrated by reading it all wrong. She had such a logical picture in her head, many puzzle pieces weaved together. Real life, stories, lessons she learned, it all just came together and filled her with worry and dread and sadness when she let her mind drift that way, but it also gave her a certain sense of surety, of understanding. A compass pointed into a specific direction and she thought she knew what awaited her there.</p><p>Without it, she’s now adrift and confused.</p><p>“And that is not my conversation to have with you,” states Saw, his voice softer than ever, and looks away. “Run off, young bandit. A peaceful life awaits you as the thick of the fight awaits me. Let’s not waste our time.”</p><p>There’s a certain finality that comes with that last phrase of Saw’s, something that Jyn quite honestly doesn’t feel like challenging at all. Quiet as a mouse and lost in perplexing thoughts, she jumps down from the seat upon the floor and heads back for the ship’s ramp. </p><p>By the time she meets mama again, Jyn is smiling and choosing to focus on what she has here and now ― Lyra’s lovely presence that grounds her and scatters most of those confusing, scary thoughts from the forefront of her attention.</p><p>Still a child, she chooses the warmth of peace over the dark coldness of things worrisome and tricky. It’s easier this way and she’s still lucky to have a privilege of such a choice. Together, mother and daughter head back towards the homestead and Galen who’s walking to meet them, and Jyn recites stories of her recent days and adventures and achievements to Lyra who’s beyond grateful to take it all in.</p>
<hr/><p><em>A few years later,</em> Jyn realizes that stopping conversations he doesn’t like firmly and on his terms and from a position of power is just a peculiar quirk of Saw’s, a part of his personality and the way he holds himself. However, he isn’t always completely set in his ways. Let him cut off a conversation like this, and sometimes it will present you with a second chance. Saw respects obedience and deference, and when he’s not riled up ― he thinks clearly and oftentimes even revisits the subject. Give him a bit of time, try again in right way, and the mountain that is his opinion can budge.</p><p>For years she’ll be quite successful at tricking Saw to change his mind like this from time to time. And then, one day, when it might be the most critical to do so, she won’t have the courage and then she won’t have the time.</p><p>She’ll never know if she ever truly stood a chance to stop a rebel from turning into a terrorist and become someone too alike with the enemy he fought.</p>
<hr/><p>A week after Lyra getting back home passes by quickly, not a thing out of ordinary. Knowing now that mama’s not really planning to go anywhere and leave her and papa behind, that prickly fear in the back of Jyn’s heart and mind dissolves, a thing not worthy of her attention and concern. Perplexity and questions about mama’s lessons and motivations remain, though, and in moments when Jyn’s mind is not laser-focused on the present or daydreaming they surface back up in gentle tides, urging her to find bravery and the right words and to tackle this mystery, to see scattered puzzle pieces click back again, to seek out clarity of understanding.</p><p>(She is mostly her mother’s daughter in habits and temperament and character, no two ways about it, but she certainly is Galen’s daughter too.)</p><p>The last day of the week is usually free from things like studies and homework and trips to Rhei’as, and most of the times it’s the day when Lyra and Jyn engage into some kind of mother-daughter bonding time and leave Galen in peace and to his own devices. To Jyn’s delight the tradition is not broken when during dinner Lyra confirms that indeed, she and Jyn are set to wake up early tomorrow and go for a hike.</p><p>From experience it means that tomorrow they’ll be alone together for hours, only nature their companion. There is no better opportunity to find her center and the right words to seek out clarity about rights and wrongs and what and when should be done about them.</p><p><em>Tomorrow</em>, Jyn wows quietly to herself, a goal she sets in stone and refuses to let her fears budge her from it, grins happily to mama, nods enthusiastically, and even reaches out for an additional portion of the vegetable salad.</p>
<hr/><p>Tomorrow comes, like it’s been for soon full eight years of her life, and, as she and Lyra head to the chain of hills westward of the Erso, no, <em>Fero</em> homestead, Jyn listens to yet another chapter of the geography audiobook explaining different climate zones in a way that’s accessible for someone her age and, engaged in earnest into this mystery becoming clearer by the minute, decides that her pressing question can wait until she and mama stop for rest.</p><p>They do so in two hours, having reached one of the bigger and more complex caves that became their unofficial favorite one in this part of the planet. Only it is different today. Jyn takes one look at what are unmistakably classical round targets from bow-shooting competitions painted onto the cave walls, then one glance at mama, and realizes that she was not the only one who had a very important conversation in mind.</p><p>Jyn lets Lyra take the lead on this one without reservations.</p><p>“Yes, this is what you think this is,” admits Lyra, looking down at her daughter, and gently strokes the crown of her braided head with her palm. “I think it is time you learned something more about protecting yourself than martial arts.”</p><p>They walk closer to the targets together. Mama gestures towards a big boulder that is located both at the side of the cold stream that flows throughout the cave and after the last painted target, and Jyn adjusts her course slightly to reach it in the quickest way possible.</p><p>“First ― a snack. Then everything else,” instructs Lyra when she helps Jyn climb the boulder and settle down upon it.</p><p>She retrieves the sandwiches and water from their backpacks, passes one to Jyn. Leaning against the boulder with her back, Lyra Erso bites into the sandwich and chews unhurriedly, a small frown etched between her eyebrows, her gaze contemplative upon the even row of targets painted with care and precision.</p><p>Having had a bit of time to take in this revelation and let it settle in her mind, Jyn chews on the rest of the food occupying her mouth, swallows, lowers her snack-equipped hands into her lap, and quietly wonders, “Are we in danger, mama?”</p><p>Lyra jerks a little as if hit by a gentle bolt of lightning. “No, love,” she hurries to reassure Jyn, clearly caught off-guard by such a question. She mutters something under her breath (something that her daughter will learn later to be a quite a nasty Huttese curse and something she’s blessedly oblivious of now), scratches her eyebrow with her thumb, and sighs. “I mean, not more than we usually are. But I simply want to be on the safe side. I―” Lyra bites her lip, fidgets nervously with her sandwich’s paper wrapping, “I’m honestly not sure if I’m right by teaching you this now, but I’m a little tired of doubting myself about this. So I’ll just try my best. Remember how you couldn’t see our escape from Coruscant coming? How sometimes it can be clear as day that the rain is near and sometimes it can just pour out of nowhere?”</p><p>Jyn wrinkles her nose in distaste. “Ugh, gross. Hate it when that happens.”</p><p>Mama smiles a little at this grimace. “If danger ever finds us like that, without warning, I want you to be ready to face it. I wish I never had to teach you this, to have this particular conversation with you, but the galaxy’s not what it’s supposed to be now and I feel like I have to do this. I think I’ll be a better mother if I do, even if most people won’t agree with me.”</p><p>Jyn scoots closer to Lyra and leans her head against mama’s arm, rubbing her forehead a little against the sleeve of mama’s wind-proof jacket in a gesture of reassuring affection. “I’m not scared of it,” this she states with utmost honesty. She isn’t fearless, no, it’s just her fear has always been more rooted around being helpless or hopelessly lost or being left alone completely. “All heroes learn to protect. And I want to be like them.”</p><p>Lyra’s arm weaves around Jyn in a hug both tight and full of motherly tenderness and boundless love. “You are already my brave and smart hero, Stardust,” tells hers mama fervently. “I couldn’t have asked for a better daughter and a friend.”</p><p>“Well―” murmurs Jyn happily as she takes another bite from her sandwich. “You could make me cooler if we’d hurried up to finish eating and you’d taught me how to kick those target’s asses,” she notes suggestively when her mouth is free again.</p><p>“You’d be such a scandal in high societies and most schools alike,” points out mama in a jovial manner.</p><p>“Learned from the very best,” Jyn states with a mirthful grin and a wink as she meets Lyra’s eyes.</p>
<hr/><p>Like it is with vast majority of things, Lyra treats the shooting lesson to Jyn in a manner suitable teaching an adult as well, always trusting her daughter to be obedient and smart and wiser than her age. She starts from going through safety precautions in a serious way and moves on from them only when she’s satisfied with Jyn’s answers and behavior. Next she touches upon many myths that surround the subject in popular culture and makes sure to dispel them all, offering practical and true advice instead. After this follows a story and practical demonstration of what the blaster is made of and how it works. Lyra disassembles it slowly, careful to make sure there’s more than enough time to track her every action, lays down every component upon the boulder close to Jyn.</p><p>“Now, given what you’ve seen, tell me how I should etch it back together again,” she challenges and tilts her head back expectantly.</p><p>Face scrunched up in concentration, Jyn’s mind races through the abundance of information she’s learned today and she gets to work. One by one, consulting with her memory, she names every blaster component and points at them with her index finger, managing to make only a single mistake that she herself corrects a few pieces later when something doesn’t feel quite right.</p><p>When the weapon is assembled once more, Lyra moves on to demonstrate the different stances one should use for shooting along with correct ways to hold and aiming the blaster. “It doesn’t look as spectacular, but it is better if you use both hands to shoot. One holds the weapon, the other braces your hand. It goes a long way to ensure you hit the target,” mama instructs and Jyn smiles, recognizing this grip. This is exactly the way Quinn Eiratas held his blaster as he searched the ancient ruins for Inala Seda when she got separated from him, pursued by double-crossing, greedy treasure hunters from that new show Lyra introduced her to this week.</p><p>(<em>Years later</em>, she’ll realize just how wonderfully realistic the show is and it will stay her most favorite piece of holo-television ever.)</p><p>“Once you’ve planted yourself like tree, steady on your feet, once your hands are firm and sure like this and you’re ready, you aim,” Lyra says and diverts her attention from Jyn to the target. “You take a breath, or release a breath and then, stilling even your breathing, you pull the trigger.”</p><p>A blue band of charged energy particles bursts out of the blaster and, crossing the distance between the weapon and one of the painted targets in a blink of an eye, hits it and disperses.</p><p>“And now you breathe again,” mama concludes and visibly relaxes, lowering the weapon. “It only looks easy, Stardust, trust me. Just like with martial arts, shooting requires patience, training, and skill. And in the heat of danger it’s an even trickier thing to succeed at.”</p><p>This, Jyn doesn’t doubt. She learned the hard way in <em>me’jaii</em> training that sometimes even the simplest of things are incredibly arcane when it comes to mastery. “But you’ll keep teaching me?” she asks and, just in case, retrieves a special case of pleading puppy eyes from her arsenal of useful facial expressions.</p><p>“Of course, love,” promises Lyra and calls Jyn towards her with a slight tilt of her head and a wink.</p><p>Careful to climb down from the boulder, Jyn hurries to mama, all excitement bubbling with earnest joy.</p>
<hr/><p>Turns out, shooting a blaster is even harder than she’d expected. The weapon mama uses is one of the smaller ones, but even so it’s a bit big for Jyn’s hands. It’s also one thing to talk about recoil and another to actually experience it reverberating up your own limbs, a sensation, even quite subdued from a weaker weapon set to stun, that still requires some getting used to. Most of the shots Jyn fires under mama’s hawk-like and yet polite guidance fail to graze to the target, but the longer she tries and the better she grasps the correct pose and grip and breathing and the overall way to hold herself without being either too tense or too relaxed, the more her accuracy improves.</p><p>Out of the last three shots of this practice day, two of them land upon the easiest target drawn for her and the other is very close. “Not to worry, love,” remarks Lyra warmly and, waiting until Jyn flicks the blaster’s safety back on and twists the blaster just right in her hands, takes the weapon into her hands and tucks it back into a self-made holster hidden beneath her jacket. “With the way you’re progressing, I think these targets won’t present a challenge for you sooner than I’d expected.”</p><p>This expression of pride and levity on mama’s face is quite short-lived, though. Jyn sees the exact moment when a bit of melancholy washes over her, quick to be replaced by gravity of what these shooting lessons might truly mean one day.</p><p>“There’s one more thing I need to touch upon,” Lyra confirms Jyn’s suspicion and settles down on the cave’s floor, legs crisscrossed at the ankles.</p><p>Honestly, she’d prefer to keep that elation from learning something cool going, but when mama gets like this ― it’s important. So Jyn honors that and sits down close to Lyra, mirroring her pose.</p><p>“A blaster is a weapon, love. A weapon that can stun, but more often than that, alas, is a weapon designed to take lives.” Lyra’s voice had gone quieter and harder, a familiar edge to it that is often present when she explains to Jyn what is right and what is wrong. “I am teaching you to protect yourself, but using a blaster is only something you can do when you are in dire straits.”</p><p>Jyn nods. “It’s the last resort, I know.”</p><p>“It is a measure of self-defense, not offence,” Lyra continues, satisfied by Jyn’s answer. “This is what you go for only if you’ve exhausted every other option to keep yourself or someone you love safe, only if you’re dead sure there is absolutely no other way. Because even used in self-defense it becomes offensive to your opponent. A weapon can end a conflict, but it fuels it before it ends it.”</p><p>That is obvious, something Jyn has learned all too well from both the stories she experienced and mama’s commentary or explanations of them. What she has always wondered about, though, is the timing of dire straits.</p><p>Jyn asks perhaps one of the hardest questions in the history of the living universe. “How will I know there’s no other way?”</p><p>She doesn’t think the question catches mama off-guard, but it seems to be as hard for her to explain as it feels hard to Jyn to be absolutely sure in what to think about it. Lyra actually takes a moment to mull it over, her hands fidgety in her lap and her forehead knotted with concentration.</p><p>And then, visibly drawing in a deep breath, she seems to make up her mind. “Do you ever get this feeling when you look at a person or at something and you just―<em>know</em>? Who they are, what are they going to do, what will probably happen?”</p><p>The most potent memory tied this feeling in Jyn’s mind belongs to no one else but the man in white. She remembers him kind of in bits and pieces and impressions, not in detailed scenes like she does many moments of her life with mama and papa. But in all those recollections there’s something about him that doesn’t sit right with her, a strange sense of dishonesty emanating from him. She never liked him, never really trusted him, preferred to keep her distance from him, and none of that was because he was an adult or an unfamiliar variable in the equation of her life. Another thing close to what Lyra is describing is much kinder and fun. The longer Jyn trains, the better she can read both moves and moods of other kids and even instructors. Their expressions, their stances, they all tell stories. Some of it is experience, sure, but sometimes she can’t really explain why a certain clarity comes to her, why exactly she makes one choice or another other than due to a momentary surge of sure righteousness somewhere deep in her heart, her bones, her soul. Something inside her truly <em>knows</em>, and it’s something both a little terrifying and infinitely wonderful.</p><p>“I do, mama. It’s strange, but it always feels right before I even really think.”</p><p>Lyra releases a breath she held for a while, licks her lips a little nervously but smiles. “It will feel like that, Stardust, but only―so much <em>more</em>.” She plants her hands against the cave’s uneven rocky floor, leans back upon them, purses her lips in thought. “My mom explained it to me this way, I think ― we all are the sum of our experiences, but we’re also a part of something bigger than just us. Things that happened to those who came before us, sometimes they leave something within us too. Most dangers that would urge a person to reach out for a weapon are truly ancient. Even if you never experienced that feeling before, somehow you always know it.”</p><p>Strangely enough it’s both obvious and a lot to take in. Mama seems to be done making her point, for she smiles to Jyn encouragingly and rises up. “All right, it’s been a lot of words and lessons for the day, love. I think we both need a break. Time to head home.”</p><p>Well-rested from the hike and her mind swarming with the influx of so much new information, Jyn agrees without any argument and follows mama’s lead.</p>
<hr/><p>The string of unexpected lessons steals her attention away from the question that’s been pestering her the entire week, but it doesn’t hold it off forever. As they leave the cave and the hill it’s hidden within behind, Jyn makes up her mind with ease this time, perhaps spurred into action by the brave way mama decided to approach the complicated topics of today, and gently tugs on Lyra’s hand.</p><p>“What is it, love?” she murmurs softly and squeezes her warm, sure fingers around Jyn’s.</p><p>Her voice hushed and a tad shy, Jyn searches for the answer. “Are you going to join Saw’s fight one day?”</p><p>“Oh,” exclaims Lyra quietly and, holding on to her daughter hand a bit tighter, brushes her thumb kindly against Jyn’s knuckles. “No, Jyn. Is that what I made you think?” she asks, a genuine note of regret and anguish coloring her tone. Lyra halts in place, goes down on her knees to be as level with Jyn as she possibly can. “I’m sorry, love. That was never my intention.” She takes both of Jyn’s hands in hers, covers them with her palm with utmost reverence. “I’m <em>not</em> leaving,” Lyra emphasizes. “You hear me, Stardust? I’m <em>not</em>,” she repeats the point, aching for it to be understood.</p><p>“But―” Jyn swallows, words fading to dust, to ashes at the tip of her tongue. Because she knows enough about the galaxy to understand that to fight for what is right is noble, that it what defines heroes and good people alike. That there are some things worth leaving something behind. “―do you want to, mama?” she finds courage deep within herself to ask and to look Lyra in the eyes while she’s at it.</p><p>Lyra Erso squeezes her eyes shut and clenches her jaw tight. But the very next moment she holds her daughter’s gaze again. “I do, love,” she admits, her shoulders jerking as if she was going to shrug but halted the motion at the very last moment. “I ache for the galaxy the way it is now, but my place is in another fight. My place is by your and your father’s side. You’re family. You’re everything to me. And it’s my job to protect you both, you understand? And this is a no less noble choice.”</p><p>Quiet, Jyn watches mama bring her hands up to her lips and press a kiss wrought with emotion, with love, gentle and reverent, to the backs of her fingertips. “I left for a trip with Saw because I need to learn how to best protect you. I have felt―” the laser-focus in Lyra’s gaze drifts off visibly, lost somewhere in the murky currents of the past, “―helpless once, during the Clone Wars. You were very small and you remember none of it, but things were bad and I couldn’t do anything. I stood, rooted in place, and I was useless.” With another deep breath, mama returns from painful memories to here and now. “I <em>won’t</em> ever feel like that again. So I will keep learning, and <em>if</em> the time to fight dares to come and threaten you and Galen ― the galaxy will regret crossing paths with me,” she concludes with a fiery promise.</p><p>Jyn extricates her hands from mama’s grip only to latch onto her in a fierce embrace and bury her nose against her neck. Breathing in a familiar scent of mama’s skin, she corrects Lyra and murmurs a promise of her own, “With <em>us</em>.”</p><p>She doesn’t see it ― that pang of pain flashing through mama’s eyes, for like every mother she wanted nothing more but for hardship and war and pain to pass her child by.</p><p>But, as nearly every mother would do, she whispers in agreement, placating, “<em>Us</em>.”</p>
<hr/><p><em>A few months later</em>, Jyn sneaks out their house’s backdoor together with mama, her hand tight like a resilient vine around Jyn’s wrist.</p><p>“You know where to go, don’t you?” whispers Lyra Erso with a hint of desperation as she searches Jyn’s eyes for an answer.</p><p>A little while has passed ever since Jyn has seen the Imperial ship mar the murky horizon of Lah’mu. This is both unexpected and not, but she knows this is some kind of an end. Whatever happens, this beautiful life her family enjoyed will be left behind and something new is looming over her. Good or bad or ugly, she doesn’t know, and that unknown is cold and sharp like a razor blade with thousands of barbs seated deep within her chest, a cruel splinter of fear and worry that refuses to dissipate even if her next steps are clear, rehearsed dozens upon dozens of times.</p><p>Quieter than a mouse, Jyn nods. They’ve been through this. She isn’t sure about trusting the Force, but it is her―</p><p>―duty, a gesture of love to trust in mama. Even when mama is clearly deviating from the plan.</p><p>Jyn runs like she was instructed to, but that razor blade in her chest budges. It doesn’t ache, not really. It compels her to stop and look over her shoulder, and see that mama is retrieving her blaster on the go and hides it beneath the sack of clothes she’d dug out from her rucksack.</p><p>And just like that, an ancient, primal part of her soul <em>understands</em>. This is the moment where self-defense becomes offence, the moment where nothing short of a loaded blaster will be able to keep her family safe.</p><p>She herself is blaster-less and useless, and while she should be a good daughter and run for the cave and the small bunker concealed within it, she made mama a promise. She can’t make it come true like she thought she might be one day, but she risks it all to hurry after mama and hide and see what fighting for your family and protecting your family means.</p><p>The last stand comes and it goes, and this time that razor blade in Jyn’s chest bursts with an explosion of ache. She clenches her jaw shut, blocking a pained whimper of devastating loss and utmost misery from echoing in the soggy, grey morning on Lah’mu, gulps in the air like she’s drowning, forces herself to rise back up into the crouch even though she’s trembling all over and feels strangely both heavy and weightless, and reverts back to being a good daughter.</p><p>Alone, Jyn Erso runs for the hideout and leaves her dead mother behind.</p>
<hr/><p><em>Two days later</em>, Saw Gerrera arrives to Lah’mu only to find charred remains of the Erso, no, <em>Fero</em> homestead keep weekly emanating smoke despite the early morning drizzle. His steps and heart heavy the way it hasn’t been in years ― perhaps the way it hasn’t been since that ghastly moment when he lost Steela ― he keeps one hand firm around the blaster, other around his metal walking stick, and he heads for the cave he helped build to keep a family safe.</p><p>The bunker’s door budges easily in his grip ― of course it would, he instructed it to be this way so that a small Human child would be able to open it and slip inside ― and he looks down into pitch-black darkness. The ache in his heart that he felt when he held his sister’s broken body in his arms comes back in earnest and makes his hand tremble as he retrieves a flashlight and directs the beam of light into the bunker.</p><p>Shadows trifling away, he finds a little girl inside. Lonely and exhausted and clearly tormented by the darkness, her narrows arms hug her knees close to her chest, but her eyes are somehow devoid of fear when she looks up at him.</p><p>She’s always been special, Jyn Erso. Extraordinary woman, her mother, and somehow this child is even <em>more</em> than her. She reminds him of Steela ― sharp-tongued, not afraid to challenge him, and always wiser and older than her age.</p><p>When Saw Gerrera first promised Lyra he’ll take care of her daughter should the worst dare to come and there will be no one else left to protect her, he earnestly assumed he’ll probably bring the child to Jedha and leave her there. The Guardians of the Whills are an annoying bunch, but they take paramount care of lost souls. The Holy City is like that ― not a place where a restless warrior like him fits, but a place where one still can grow up surrounded by kindness, where every stranger can find a family. It isn’t much, but it’s the best he can think of.</p><p>But he looks into the girl’s eyes now and, damn it all to the shattered wasteland of a hell-hole that is Malachor V, he realizes with an almost mystic, immense certainty that he’ll be taking her with him to Wrea. He owes that much to a dead woman with fire of war in her heart who’d chosen to fight for her family instead of fighting for the entire galaxy. He owes it to the memory of Steela, to the hope that someone like Steela and Jyn Erso could bring to this galaxy.</p><p>“My child,” says Saw Gerrera and sees the girl’s jaw slowly unclench. “Come,” he tells her softly and gestures invitingly with one hand, a motion softer than most of those he’d ever used in years. Her arms relax, release their stiff grip of her knees, her hands falling into her lap. “Come. We have a long ride ahead of us.”</p><p>Jyn Erso rises up, slow but growing steadier by a second, secures the backpack upon her slight shoulders, and, ignoring his outstretched helping hand, climbs out of the bunker and into the grey light of Lah’mu’s morning with a bravery that’s very rare to be seen in this galaxy, a bravery that even terrifies Saw himself a little bit.</p><p>In that moment Saw Gerrera sees how a little girl dies and from those ashes a warrior emerges.</p><p>It’s <em>beautiful</em>. And, deep in his heart, a string he thought was long frayed into dust reverberates with sadness for innocence lost.</p>
<hr/><p>What Saw Gerrera doesn’t quite realize then and won’t get a chance and honor to ever realize, is that this girl will seek out war, will be burned by war to the point of leaving it behind, and then will find it again. She will have a very loud point to make in the story of Orson Krennic, her parents, and the fate of the entire galaxy. She will grow up to walk a dark path in honor of light, and she’ll pave way to peace along this cruel, demanding path ― a peace for the galaxy and herself alike.</p><p>Hers won’t be an easy story. But it will be a story of hope.</p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Apologies for a ridiculous size of this one-shot, but I honestly couldn't conceive the idea of splitting this story into different chapters. To me this always felt like one unbreakable episode of a TV-show or a movie where flashbacks intertwine with fast-forwards, and trying to divide it into chapters never felt right, and so was never truly considered or attempted. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Also, it's definitely the weirdest story I've ever came up with in terms of structure, so I hope it works for other people as nice and smooth as it felt in my head.</p><p>The word me'jaii used to name martial arts of people of Lah'mu is derived from Egyptian '<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medjay">Medjay</a>'. Inspiration comes from the Assassin's Creed Origins game I've finished playing not long ago and the occupation of its main protagonist. I'm all for the idea of good people learning to fight and serve their community with those kinds of skills.</p><p>Lah'mu is more populated in this story than it's stated in Catalyst: A Rogue One novel because I wanted to explore the idea of a modern community settling on a new planet successfully, but proceeding not to mess it up too much. Bits and pieces of Lyra's backstory from the book are taken, but also changed to serve the story I wanted to tell. Certain minor elements of Rogue One the movie were altered here and there as well. Also, I blame watching Outlander a week or so before starting on this story for a clearly-Scottish accent of one of the original characters. :D</p><p><a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Malachor_V">Malachor V</a><br/><a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Nexu">Nexu</a><br/><a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Shuura">Shuura fruits</a> (yeah, the infamous fruit from Anakin's cringey attempt at flirting with Padme in Attack of the Clones. It deserves better representation :D)<br/><a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Aria_Prime">Aria Prime</a><br/><a href="https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Zama-shiwo">Zama-shiwo</a></p><p>And, lastly, yes, the title is a nod to Avatar: The Last Airbender *wink-wink* that I have recently finished watching for the very first time in my life. I'm very late to ATLA appreciation party, but boy did it stick with me. :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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